Dave Swoish of Orange asks a good question in his letter to the Orange County Register.

Has anybody else noticed the disappearance in the past year of the "anti-war protesters" who flocked to the Circle in "Old Orange" and other street corners in Southern California?

Even though our soldiers are still fighting in Iraq and the current president announced an increase of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, these self-righteous humanitarians have slunk back into their corners until the next time the Democratic Party summons them out to do their political bidding. Next election, just bring out your political candidate signs and spare us the sanctimonious hand-wringing.

Yes, Mr. Swoish has discovered the fine print on the signs that say "Say No to War!" – which is, "Unless a Democrat is President."

It is the height of double-standard partisanship when you speak out in support of something "your guy" does, but criticize others for doing the exact same thing, or when you stay silent when your guy does it but actively protest against it when others do the exact same thing.

Sometimes, reading the letters printed in the Los Angeles Times is like watching a clumsy, arthritic, stoned clown breakdance in a funhouse mirror.

Brad Scabbard of Woodland Hills actually brings up some good points:

Judith Miller and David Samuels contend that it is not Islam but Islamic heretic extremists who are our enemies. Are they really saying that they know Islam better than the millions of Muslims who follow the Koran's injunctions regarding the infidel? Can they cite any influential non-jihadi imams who have publicly condemned the "extremists"? Have they read the Koran?

I've read up a little on Islam – mostly I did it before 9/11. But I can't tell you with any confidence who is practicing "real" Islam. Clearly, the majority of people identifying themselves as Muslims are not engaging in terrorism.

I can tell you that someone who tries to spread Christianity by the sword is not in line with Christian doctrine.

Frederic E. Bloomquist of San Pedro wrote:

When the George W. Bush administration decided to unilaterally invade Iraq based on a falsehood, we also acted as an extremist group, killing thousands of innocents.

Are you for real, Bloomquist?

The Bush administration, with the approval of Congress including Democrats, and the U.N., led a coalition into Iraq, as the existing regime there had demonstrably violated terms of the Gulf War cease fire. And yes, innocents died. That's war. We take steps not to kill innocents. Our enemies do not.

You have to check out the rest of his letter.

John C. Nangle of West Hollywood tries to equate Sharia law with our Constitutional system coupled with the presence of Roman Catholicism in our nation.

Governments should pursue the common good so that public order prevails despite differing opinion, even on theological issues.

Nangle says we should do something. From where does that obligation arise?

In the U.S., one such issue is availability of abortion, shaped by the religious views of a minority who dismiss factors that should guide public policy.

Really? Abortion isn't available? When was the last time Nangle tried to get one and had trouble? One need not be "religious" to oppose abortion, either. In addition, a majority of Americans want more restrictions on abortion.

It seems to be of little concern to them that the number of abortion-related injuries would increase by making abortion less available.

Would it really? Even so, it would reduce the number of slaughtered babies. Murder is a lot worse than self-inflicted injury.

On the contrary, we ought to base law on good public policy and shame those who would use religious coercion to try to get legislators to do otherwise.

It is up to each and every individual legislator which religion, if any, to practice.

Frank Ferrone of El Cajon wrote:

Ah, the joys of the "let the marketplace take care of itself" school of government. About 22 million Americans are suffering with the H1N1 virus, and one-third of the nation's workers don't have paid sick days. In other words, the sick must come to work or lose pay and be disciplined.

Mr. Ferrone, why do you assume that the service these workers provide is so worthless that employers won't want to retain them by coming up with a solution to this problem?

Joyce Moran of San Clemente wrote:

A vomiting food and beverage concierge was docked and disciplined by the Disneyland Hotel for leaving her shift early. I will never, ever set foot in that place again. I hope thousands of other people feel the same after reading this.

Mike Villano of Lake Balboa wrote:

That the Disneyland Hotel would deny sick days to its employees is not just morally reprehensible, it should also be criminal.

I suppose it is mere coincidence that the Disneyland Hotel is currently involved in a labor dispute with people who act like Disney kidnaps employees and forces them to work at gunpoint… I'm sure this has nothing to do with that story being included in the article or these letters being written. Nah, not at all.

I happen to know that Disney is ridiculously generous with sick days and attendance. The people who show up to work sick do so because they take so many other days off as "sick days" when they really aren't sick, that they run the risk of losing their jobs. If they wouldn't do that, they could easily call in sick when they really are sick.

Listen up, people. You apply for your jobs in this country. Don’t like it? Go somewhere better. Or create your own job.

How come nobody is complaining about how we're still in Kosovo, and that Kosovo never attacked us to begin with?

Oh, that's right.  "Say No to War!"...unless a Democrat enters us into it.

The Leftists who call for surrender, appeasement and "talking" with genocidal terrorist tyrants hellbent on destroying us are like the domestic violence victims (usually woman) who think that their "love" can change a violent abuser.  It is delusional and deadly thinking.

...Unless a Democrat is President.  That’s pretty much the standard for the Left.  And yes, I stole that from ProtestWarrior.com.

If, over the next few months, we captured or killed OBL and all of the top terrorist group leaders, democratic stability and peace took definitive hold in Iraq and Afghanistan and spilled over into Iran, and we found out that the threat of our impending military action caused Saddam Hussein to abandon the planned use of WMD against Israel…

I’m almost certain the response from Obama and other Dem leaders would be “We could have achieved the same results from holding summits, without the expense in American lives and dollars via Bush-McCain's failed policies.”

So what have we learned through the recent SCOTUS decision on enemy combatants taken prisoner and the whining and ranting of the Democrat leadership and their base about Iraq over the last several years?

1) Keep wars short.  Instead of going through pains to not kill or harm civilians, end to rebuild infrastructure, let's just bomb the hell out of problem areas to make sure that we kill the terror cells and degrade their abilities to manufacture WMD.

2) Take no prisoners.  Just kill them when and where we find them.

Sure, more innocent people will die, but hey - our hands are tied.

I heard a clip of Benedict Arnold McClellan on the radio – I think it was from The Today Show - talking about his desire to change the partisanship in Washington, D.C.

Give me a break.  All of these people who claim that the nation has never been so polarized and partisan should do a little research and read up on some of the stuff that was said and written about some of our favorite Presidents in years past.  And hello... the war for secession, otherwise known as the Civil War?  Partisanship is nothing new, and we all know that calls for “bipartisan cooperation” mean “Hey all of you conservatives and libertarians: Shut up and roll over as we grow the socialist nanny state and tear down the family.”

Where partisanship really has gotten worse is with our involvement in Iraq.  Go back and see how Republicans handled dealing with a Democrat President during World War II.  You won’t find them behaving like the Democrat leadership is these days.  It’s really disgusting.  But the absurdity here is that McClellan is adding to that instead of reducing it.

Good job, buddy.  Better put some of this money aside to live on, unless you plan on being a paid tool of very partisan Democrats for the rest of your life.

Another “America is bad” study is out.  Funny, everyone still wants to come here.  Would someone please tell our neighbors to the south how horrible we are?  Sue Pleming reports:

Iceland is the world's most peaceful nation while the United States is ranked among the bottom third, according to a study released on Tuesday.

Yeah, but didn’t Iceland foist Bjork on the world?

I’ve noticed that studies that say “Hey, the U.S. is great!” don’t get a lot of press.

The "Global Peace Index," compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked the United States 97th out of 140 countries according to how peaceful they were domestically and how they interacted with the outside world.

Well, sure. You know, plenty of cowards and slaves can be considered peaceful.  All they have to do is not fight back and never stand up for themselves or anyone else.  It is also easy to keep domestic peace when you don’t have the problem of third-world illegal alien gangbangers flooding your cities and when you keep a really tight leash on your citizens.  I prefer freedom rather than “peace” under a tyrant.  Just let me keep a gun.

Its image has also been damaged by the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

Ah, so let all of terrorists out of confinement and then we'll be "peaceful" as they blow up our cities.  Two of the differences between the U.S. and other countries in the "prisoner abuse scandal": 1) the pictures got out, and; 2) the "perps" were punished instead of rewarded.

Small, stable and democratic countries were found to be the most peaceful in the index, with 16 of the top 20 coming from western or central European democracies.

They will be even more “peaceful” when the Muslims impose sharia law.

The index looks at 24 indicators of external and internal measures of peace, including U.N. deployments overseas and levels of violent crime, respect for human rights, the number of soldiers killed overseas and arms sales.

I see – so because we step up to the plate and our soldiers are getting targeted by terrorist savages, we’re no peaceful.  The counties that are content to let us do the heavy lifting are “peaceful.”  Arming people for defense is apparently not peaceful, either.

The index was launched under the auspices of the Institute for Economics and Peace, a new think tank that looks at the relationship between economics, business and peace.

Supporters of the index urged policymakers to focus more on education, wealth, and well-functioning government and pointed to the role of business in creating more stability.

The smaller the government, the better.  But what does it meat to “focus more on education, wealth”?  With free market capitalism, wealth will be developed independent of government actions.  There are many “educated” people who are neither wealthy nor peaceful.

While I do believe that free market capitalism can promote peace, it always involves open competition, and “peace” for the sake of material gain is not necessarily a good thing.

Is it hopeless for those of us who believe in limited, Constitutional government, personal liberty, property rights, and free markets?

Consider:

--Most voters apparently expect the government to do something for them, including protecting them from the negative consequences of their own actions, instead of simply protecting them from the denial of their rights by others.  Just consider how many people think health insurance and education, provided by others, is a right.  Just consider how many people think their personal happiness should be the responsibility of the President.

--Most people attend public schools, which, in the interest of self-preservation, are unlikely to teach students the benefits of limited government and self-reliance instead of government-reliance.  The people in control of these schools think it is their responsibility to make students feel good about themselves, no matter what they do wrong or fail to do right.

--Plenty of Americans are prone to blame America first, to seek the approval of other countries, and to wanting our leaders to enter into restricting agreements with other countries designed to transfer wealth from Americans to others by force.

--The Democrats are largely beholden to public employee unions, who have an interest in increasing the size of government.  Both parties are backed by business interests who have apparently given up on the idea of getting the government off their backs, and instead try to steer the government money (which is really our money, taken by force), their way.

--Articulating the actual ideals of the Founding Fathers would get a POTUS candidate labeled by most Americans as an extremist theocrat who wants to throw people into the streets without shelter or an education, to die of starvation or sickness or injuries from a hate crime, or maybe work them to death in a job with low pay and lousy conditions.

Maybe it is true that the GOP can’t retain the White House without credibly presenting a coherent plan for reform.

But just what kind of reform are voters going to buy?

Maybe there is hope, but reforms are going to have to move very slowly towards reigning in government.

Energy.  Everyone’s concerned about fuel prices, though there are some that like the increased prices because they hate progress because they think it is killing Gaia, or whatever her name is.  There is no way to stem rising fuel prices without some unpopular decisions.  We need to tap our own fossil fuels.  We need new refineries to process it.  We need to use nuclear power.  If we can show that these steps will stem rising fuel prices, enough people might buy into it.

War.  None of us want our men and women getting injured, maimed, killed, or traumatized in war, especially for them to return home to poor treatment.  We need to show voters that we will provide for our veterans and that we will reduce the need to prolonged war if we increase intelligence effectiveness and have saboteur/assassination/surgical strike squads.  That might not be popular with the international community, but prolonged wars aren’t popular with American voters, and if we can prevent prolonged wars, then we should.  As for Iraq, McCain should drill home the nation that we’ll protect our soldiers by helping Iraq to win the peace.

Immigration.  This hasn’t been a big issue lately in the campaign, probably because of the track records of the candidates.  I’ve frequently stated my ideals, but those ideals won’t appeal to enough people.  So, what McCain needs to do is publicize a clear “reform” plan that includes effective border protection first.  Once we can demonstrate effective border protection, other things will become more acceptable to a majority of voters, such as easing up on workplace raids and boosting legal immigration.  We’ll still need to pursue illegal aliens for deportation if they are committing serious crimes inside the country, including identity theft.  Announce that once the border is secured, we will consider allowing illegal aliens to register for the following reasons: 1) for identification to cut down in identification theft; 2) a temporary work permit; and 3) to “get in line” for legal immigration as of that moment as if they were applying from their country.  You can’t promise this ahead of the border being secured, or we’ll get a wave of people coming in.

Education.  Although I believe in separation of school and state, I don’t see enough people going for it.  So vouchers will have to do.  I know this will elicit howls of protest from teacher unions, but inner-city minority voters have expressed support for vouchers and making them part of a reform plan just may work.  Boost tax incentives that encourage education.  Encourage charter schools.  If enough people see how these moves will benefit them, then they will want them.

Environment.  Encouragement for sound conservation through private property stewardship.  The wackos will not be happy without total government control and oppression of productivity, but perhaps enough moderates can be persuaded that we’re not out to poison the planet.


Our long-term strategy, as those who believe in limited government, needs to be two-fold:

1. Convince enough Republican leaders that limited government is the way to go, or groom such people within the Republican party.
2. Get enough Republicans elected, and stay on them to stick to limited government principles.

In the Vietnam era, they protested in the streets, declaring "The draft sucks!  End the draft!"

Now, they complain about the make-up of the volunteer army, and some have introduced political-theater attempts to bring back the draft.

In 1990/1991 they shrilly and frantically proclaimed "Getting Iraq out of Kuwait will bog us down in a quagmire!  It will be Vietnam all over again!  Aaaaagh!!!!!"

Then, it was "Okay, we didn’t get bogged down in a quagmire, but those oil fires will take years to extinguish!"

Then, it was "Okay, the fires are out, but G.H.W. Bush should have ignored the coalition and continued the war and removed Saddam!"

For every year until 2003, they insisted that G.H.W. Bush should have ignored the coalition and removed Saddam.

Then, in 2004, all of a sudden they said we should pass a "global test" with our plans before protecting ourselves.

All along, their cry has been "No blood for oil!"

And yet they complain about high gasoline prices.

When Clinton got us involved in Yugoslavia’s civil war, that was okay. America has been involved with many civil wars in other countries, and yet now they insist that Iraq is in the middle of a civil war and therefore we should retreat.

The liberals tell us that "Bush should have prevented 9/11!"  They insist he should have known exactly the who, when, and how of the 9/11 attacks before they happened, and yet they also shout "No wiretapping phone calls between terrorist havens to the U.S.!" and "Don’t hold terrorist combatants in Gitmo!  Don’t ask them questions!"

Some of them insisted that "Getting into Afghanistan will bog us down in a quagmire!  It will be Vietnam all over again!  Aaaaagh!!!!!"

But later it was "Okay, so Afghanistan wasn’t a quagmire, but Iraq will be.  What’s that I remember hearing about a broken clock?"

So many prominent liberals are on the record saying "Let’s take action! Saddam must be removed!  We know he has WMDs!" and they voted for the war in Iraq.  Now, so many of the very same people say "Bush’s war, Bush lied, people died."

They also insist that Saddam was not involved in terror, yet they also say "W only went after Saddam because Saddam tried to have his father killed."  Some of them also add "And for oil.  And to give money to Halliburton."

They complain that Bush is a dictator, clearly ignorant of what it is like to actually live under a dictator, and yet some of them now say Iraq would be better under a dictator (Saddam).

They want us to "do something" about Dafur, but they don’t want us to break anything, kill anyone, or risk losing any of our soldiers.

Liberals insist that we shouldn’t have gone in Iraq because Iraq didn’t attack us, and yet they want us to do something about Darfur, and supported Clinton’s orders regarding Yugoslavia.

Many liberals had been saying that we need more troops in Iraq, and now when Bush takes that action, they say "No more troops!"

Liberals hold the popular opinion as sacred when it comes to Iraq and that the Commander-in-Chief must bow to the will of the people, but it is okay to ignore the will of the people when it comes to laws about marriage and abortion.

Liberals throughout history have insisted (rightfully) that people be treated with equality, and yet now American liberals say that Iraqis don’t deserve freedom, liberty, and democracy.

If you oppose military action defense consistently, I can respect that.  (By the way, please let me know when I can come in to your home, take your possessions, and make you my slave without your resistance.)  What I can’t stay silent about, though, are the inconsistent, wishy-washy, fair-weather types who demand protection from terrorists, demand we intervene in troubled areas around the world, and support military action, but then turn around and bash the President when he takes action because he is a Republican, say we have no business intervening in the matters of other countries, and call for us to retreat.