Fantasy Chickens Coming Home in Wisconsin: A Rant

The fantasy chickens are coming home to roost in Wisconsin.

It's not about democracy.
Whatever one might think about democracy, Democrat party affiliated legislators who have now fled their duties in Wisconsin (and now Indiana), are clearly not interested in it.
Nor are they clear on their responsibility to represent the people of their districts who voted for them and gave them power.
Pulling this kind of stunt makes clear to all what it is really about in their own minds:
It is all about them. They have taken on the mantle of the annointed, they believe that they are right, and they believe that they therefore have the right to force their will on the demos, in violation of the mandate of the said people to balance the budget of Wisconsin.

Minority party Wisconsin have holed up in Illinois, in order to stop a change in the collective bargaining privileges of public employees in Wisconsin. Apparently, democracy--the process of majority rule with respect to voting--is fine for Egypt, but not so fine for the people of Wisconsin (and Indiana).

It is not that I promote pure democracy, which our founders rightly characterized as mob rule; rather I support our Constitutionally mandated representative republican government, in which government is accordingly a servant to the protection of the individual rights of the people, and in which the Rule of Law covers everyone equally, from the President of the United States to the day laborer. (That our current POTUS believes he is above the law, and is allowing his adminstration to act in contempt of court in a number of cases, does not obviate the Constitution, it only makes it clear that the executive branch is in rebellion against it). Democracy is not a form of government, but it is a process that, with certain limits, is useful to the workings of said government.

But what we are seeing in Wisconsin is not even democracy. For those legislators who have used "the nuclear option" as they are calling it, are denying a quorum to their respective legislators, and are refusing to do their jobs because in these cases, the vote will likely go against them.

Certainly there are time-honored ways to slow down a bill, but the spectacle of legislators picking up their marbles and going AWOL in order to stop bills that has widespread popular support among the people who are taxed to pay for public services is nothing so much as it is childish behavior, a kind of "my way or the highway" thinking that will neither solve the budget woes of the states nor endear these legislators to their constituents. In Wisconsin, those who actually work to pay for public services are now not only told that public servants who live off of their dime, have a "right" to free health insurance and pensions to which they need make no contribution--privileges that the ordinary taxpayer does not have--but they are burdened with paying for legislative sessions that accomplish nothing toward balancing the budgets of their states, now burdened with debt and close to bankruptcy. Since the states cannot print money and inflate their way to a temporary fix as the federal government can, these states--and many others--are now poised at the brink of insolvency.

To add further insult to injury, the people of Wisconsin are also treated to the spectacle of teachers walking out on their contracts, politicizing their students and lying about the reason that they are not in the classroom in order to receive sick pay for their antics. Imagine how this must go over in the minds of Wisconsin's working poor, who are little more than day laborers without contract--often having no sick pay, no collective bargaining privileges, and who must now scramble to pay someone to watch their children so that they can keep the wolves from the door for a little while longer. For such people, an extra expense such as this can mean the difference between eating and going hungry, or between having a home and taking to the streets in a different way, as homeless families with no place to lay their heads at night.

The fantasy chickens are now coming home to roost in Wisconsin, where a relatively privileged group of public servants believe that others owe them more than a living, that the taxpaying people who have no such privileges also owe them support for the rest of their lives, and that they need not lift a finger to save for that future. Even more fantastic, they further argue that if these privileges are not provided at the level of their wishes, they can walk out on the contracts they have signed with no consequences, and lie on national television by receiving fake doctors' excuses given out at their temper tantrum parties. . .err, rallies. And they say with a straight face that this is all about teaching the children of Wisconsin. There are no adequate words in the English language that can be used in a family blog to describe such Chutzpah.

The Democrat party legislators encourage such fantasy, and partake in it themselves, when they walk away from the responsibilities that they were elected to accomplish, and which in Wisconsin includes a mandate to balance the budget.

Reality bites. There is no free lunch, and the universe does not owe anyone a living or a life. Money does not grow on trees, and when we choose to have public schools, they have to be paid for with money that is taken by force from some workers to support others.

The minority of teachers* who walked out of their classrooms, politicized their students and in general threw a temper tantrum on the streets of Wisconsin have broken their contracts and ought to be fired. The people of the various districts of Wisconsin ought to recall, impeach or otherwise censure their errant and AWOL legislators, and if these remedies are not available to them, at the very least, refuse to pay for this irrresponsibility. And as always, they ought to "remember, remember" on the 6th of November.

The "Democrats" have vividly demonstrated that they do not really respect democracy as the process that makes government work in Wisconsin. Apparently, democracy works for them only when they win the vote, but when they believe they will lose, well, then any action is acceptable. "Nelly, bar the door!"


*DISCLAIMER: I am a licensed teacher, and I have taught in both public and private school classrooms. I do not dislike teachers, and on the whole I believe that most labor diligently at an important, and often thankless task, but one that they took on willingly and for which they are compensated with a salary and benefits. However, I believe that walking out of the classroom without notice is a breach of contract written or implied, and it is a disgrace to the profession. Further, politicizing the classroom and influencing the students politically goes beyond the educational mandate of the teacher, and encroaches upon the rights and responsibilities of the parents. Lying shamelessly on national television by accepting fake doctors' excuses indicates that these "teachers" have no concern for the values or morals of their students. This is all about them, not about the kids that they are using so cynically.

Crimethink: The Collectivist War on Ideas

"To even consider any thought not in line with the principles of Ingsoc. Doubting any of the principles of Ingsoc. All crimes begin with a thought. So, if you control thought, you can control crime. "Thoughtcrime is death. Thoughtcrime does not entail death, Thoughtcrime is death. The essential crime that contains all others in itself."

-- Newspeak Dictionary: Definitions from Orwell's 1984

"Threat reports that focus on ideology instead of

criminal activity are threatening to civil liberties . . ."

-Michael German, ACLU Analyst, writing about the MIAC Report

I have been thinking quite a bit about politically correct language and the style of argumentation that is coming from the statists lately. In fact, I have been thinking about it since last fall, when I first ventured an unpopular opinion at that rumored bastion of free throught, the university. However, in the past several months, my thoughts have become focused on two issues, the redefinition of certain ideas as extremist and therefore outside ordinary discourse, and the inability of collectivists to construct or recognize an argument from principle. I think these two issues are likely related.

The redefinition of ideas (rather than actions) as extremist is really an extension of the redefinition of certain words and ideas as politically incorrect. Labelling some speech as politically incorrect narrows the terms of discourse and limits the ability of individuals to discuss any and all ideas. When judicial sanctions and legal punishments are imposed upon individuals who persist in discussing such ideas then the Western concepts of free thought and free expression are violated. However, social sanctions are also limiting, and it is through this nudge effect that certain ideas are expunged from discourse.

The imposition of politically correct discourse upon Western culture in modern times came from the Frankfort School, a Marxist think tank founded in Europe for the purpose of spreading a social correlate of Marxist economics. The Frankfort School thus established what they called "critical theory" which is critical, but it is not a theory. It is simply a method to bring down Western culture by criticizing it in all its aspects, without suggesting an alternative to any of its institutions and/or ideas. The Frankfort School moved to Columbia University in New York during WWII, and brought the concept of political correctness with it. This Social Marxism was spread first in academia and then throughout the culture courtesy the Consciousness Revolution of the 1960's.

What is so insidious about political correctness is that it supresses the free expression of ideas that do not conform to those approved by a self-appointed cultural elite. These people have placed themselves into the position of deciding what ideas may be discussed and which ones may not. For the past decades, they have relied on self-censorship and social nudging to enforce their particular ideological orthodoxy. More recently, through the use of academic judicial processes and by laws against hate speech and hate crimes, they have sought to impose such censorship from above. As Willian Lind put in an AIA address in 2000:

"America today is in the throws of the greatest and direst transformation in its history. We are becoming an ideological state, a country with an official state ideology enforced by the power of the state. In "hate crimes" we now have people serving jail sentences for political thoughts. And the Congress is now moving to expand that category ever further. Affirmative action is part of it. The terror against anyone who dissents from Political Correctness on campus is part of it." (The Origins of Political Correctness: An Accuracy in Academia Address).

There are two particularly troubling aspects of this supression of ideas.

One is that, as free Americans find their voices and try to use reason to support our founding ideas, they find that more and more concepts are being subsumed under politically correct labels. Thus recently, a popular talk-show host was accused of a "smear campaign" for correctly labeling former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones as a Marxist, even though Jones used that label for himself. Apparently, labels for ideas such as socialism, fascism, and Marxism, are now themselves politically incorrect and may not be spoken. At least, not by us.

If an idea may not be spoken, it first becomes unspeakable and then becomes unthinkable.

Having no way to name the concept, opponents to an idea become inarticulate. The battle is lost to the politically correct mavens before it is begun; It is lost, not to superior arguments, but to the refusal to name the insidious nature of political correctness. This is why it is so important for those of us who oppose such censorship to define our terms and argue our position from principle, and to do so as consistently, rationally and firmly as possible. We must refuse to self-censor. We must name the ideological origins of politically correct censorship and name the motives of those who wish to silence us.

The second problematic aspect of political correctness is that its proponents group together a set of positions that do not logically rely on one another, thus linking them into a series by which they can shift the discussion. For example, if I were to argue that parents have the right to educational choices for their children, (as I have) a proponent of PC would (and has) immediately launched into a diatribe of name-calling, accusing me of being a creationist (which I am not). If I defend myself against such an objection, I have conceded to political correctness, and if I do not defend myself, I am conceding to an untruth. Instead of being caught in this false dilemna, I must recognize that in shifting the discussion, the PC czar has conceded that he has no argument; the whole thing has devolved into name-calling. At that point, the discussion is essentially over. All that remains is for me to name what has happened. Calmly and clearly. There is no way to "win" such a dilemna, but by bringing the reality into the light of day, I can inform reasonable listeners about what is really going on.

As for the opponent, usually when he finds he has no argument, he gets mad:

For example, consider the following diatribe by a supporter of statism from a Facebook page. This person had been challenged several times to answer a direct question after calling a Native American from Utah who opposes certain Obama policies a racist, even though the policies he oppose have nothing to do with race. Backed into a corner, he responded:

"Apparently you psycho GOP sheep would be more comfortable if obama told our kids, "Ignore evolution, intelligent design (RELIGION) is the only truth. Join the army someday, hopefully you won't be sent to a foreign land to die based on bad intelligence (LIES). And don't forget to abstain from sex, but if you can't, whatever you do, don't wear a condom."There was no partisanship in the speech. Eat your (expletive deleted) words and admit that you made up your minds about the speech before the speech even happened. Why? Because you don't want to share this country anyone who isn't like you. What other reason is there to still be a republican? GW Bush was the worst president in the history of the united states. Where was your outrage then? Small thinking out of small towns, people living in small bubbles. When election time rolls around the GOP will pander to your beliefs, to get your vote and rob you (expletive deleted) blind when they are in power. And with a black president, the GOP are starting to lose their (expletive deleted) minds. Back to the good ole days, right? When bush and his corrupt scum of a white house spent every day trying to (explitive deleted) the middle class out of every dime and commit war crimes. (Expletive deleted) who created this bullshit nutjob KKK group and (expletive deleted) all you parents who are actually scared of this president. Most of you wouldn't even know how to identify socialism even if it was anywhere near what the president said. Which it wasn't. Psychos." (Name expunged to protect the guilty).

Notice that there are no arguments in this piece of very poor writing. It is a string of undemonstrated assertions, repetitive lies, and name calling, originally complete with the repeated use of a certain strong Anglo-Saxon word beginning with F. (Although this is the worst I've seen, almost every non-argument I've encountered is there). What this writer wants is for his interlocutors to argue each claim.

But there are no arguments here at all, and nothing worthy of response.

He is not even wrong.*

*A friend showed . . . [physicist Wolfgang Pauli]the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, 'That's not right. It's not even wrong.' " Peierls, 1960).

This is the reality of it: those who impose PC have no arguments. If they did, they would not have to attempt politically correct censorship. This is why they use propaganda techniques, such as subject-shifting, name-calling and the big lie, rather than engaging in principled discussion. Ultimately, they believe they are right, not from rational thought, but by some magical superiority. This is why they cannot construct an argument. Their sense of rightness comes not from reason, but from emotion. They feel it, so therefore it must be true. This is, as I have pointed out many times in this blog, the vision of the annointed. Until such a person chooses to think rationally about his claims, there is no point in continuing the discussion.

R3volution: Never Let Down Our Will to Protect It

This weekend, in between having my first real Shabbat in 10 weeks and meetings to discuss aspects of the R3volution, I have been impatiently thumbing through Naomi Wolf's Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries and I watched Revolution with Al Pacino, the new DVD version of the 1985 movie.

I bought the book out of sheer depression on Election Day 2008. Although I was certain of the outcome, what depressed me was that the election was the epitome of a game, a show put on for the American people; a show whose outcome did not really matter, because either of the major party candidates were going to be taking us to same dismal place. I remember reading the introduction and then life, and university papers, took over, and the book remained on my shelf until one of our Shabbat guests casually mentioned it when we were discussing our own R3volution over tea and cherry pie.

The book is a disappointment because despite Wolf's promising premise that the people of the United States have the obligation to be rebels, ". . . to take the most serious possible steps and undergo the most serious kinds of personal risk in defense of this freedom that is your natural right", she does not wrestle very deeply with the ideas; where those rights come from and what they mean. Thus, she dismisses the Founders as dead white males (what could they possibly know of tyranny, she seems to ask), and she continually mistakes the Republic they founded as "democracy" where one's rights can be voted away by the tyranny of the majority. Nevertheless, her idea that every generation of us who have inherited the idea of liberty is obligated to rebel against the new tyranny of an out of control executive branch that had imposed upon us the Patriot Act with all the depredations of our rights in it, and an unconstitutional war in Iraq and Afganistan. (She clearly hated Bush II, but I wonder what she would think of the current administration, the one that has instructed its loyal minions to report on their "fishy" neighbors who oppose its plans? Does she see the continued destruction of our liberties, or is she partisan to her party, right or wrong? I hope that she is an equal-opportunity critic of tyranny whether it comes in Democrat or Republican form.)

The movie was far more satisfying. I had seen the VCR version some years ago, but this new version, with added narration, made what had been a beautiful film with a botched ending into a more comprehesible portrait of an illiterate fur trader who is caught up in the American Revolution. At the beginning of the movie, as he and his son bring their boat into New York, Tom Dobb (Al Pacino) muses:

"Revolution: A word spoke everywhere. It’s about the bringing down of a king and the noisy shouting, celebrating on the day my Ned and me come into New York. My boy asks what it ‘tis. I don’t know."

The boy Ned enlists in the fight, and his father goes, somewhat against his will, to protect the boy. However, he makes his son cut and run with him after the battle of Brooklyn Heights, determined to protect their lives, saying:

"I, being born of another place, sold and sent [into indentured servitude: EHL] to this land makes me only some little bit American. For I would as leaf be back in the natural land of my birth than caught in this butchery for a cause not mine. I’ll take freedom for Ned and me from this bloodshed now and here."

But gradually, through a series of events, we are shown the rigid class structure of the Brits, and the ways in which the colonists are seen as "Friday's Children", those who must work for a living, the fruits of their labor and their very persons confiscated for the folly of the landed gentry, and the momentary pleasure of the nobility. Coming back to New York to find work he notes:

"New York is not as we left it. It’s now a place of complete England with its ceremony and soldiers. Oh, but the throne itself fills every street and alley. They that were called the Continental Army, broken as a dry twig. . . "

There being no foxes for the pleasure of the British officers before battle, he and fellow worker from the rope factory are made to run before the hounds, tied to an effigy of George Washington.

"So strange and cruel a thing to die a hunter of animals for means to live and now the animal hunted. All for the foolish sport of kings. I am made prideless, crawling to survive for my Ned’s life. "

But the turning point comes after his son is impressed into the Redcoat Army to be a drummer boy, and refusing the advances of a lord who fancies little boys, is badly injured by a beating to his feet. Dobbs, a frontiersman, tracks and saves the boy, and when Huron scouts find them, they treat Ned's feet. As he is holding and rocking his son through the painful cauterization of his wounds, Tom Dobbs comforts him, saying:

"I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. We’re gonna find us a place where there ain’t no one to bow down to. Where there ain’t no lord or lady better than you. Where you can say what you like and climb as high as you want. And there ain’t nobody gonna treat no one like a dog in the dirt. I look around me, Ned, and I see all kinds of people. Men, women. And they got families like mine. And we all stand together like brothers and sisters. And we make a place for ourselves. We’ll make a place where our babies can sleep safe through the night.”

“Are we there, Pa?”

“We’re almost there, son. You come through, Ned.”

Then, holding his son, he reflects:

"I spake words to Ned I did not know were in me. And now with them said, I am new. And there’s new purpose in this bloody and uneven fight. I can now see what parted Ned from me these many a month. He knew deep in him this land of his birth was home."

And thus Tom Dobbs joins himself to the cause of Liberty. He sees that it is his fight.

As I watched the transformation of this man, who at the end of the movie tells his son to tell his own children and his children's children "how we fought. And you tell them, Ned, how far we come," he says. I also thought about the idea that we, the children's children's children's children, have the obligation to continually join ourselves to that same cause of Liberty. To stand up anew against those in Congress who have forgotten that they are not our masters, but our servants. Those who mean to impose upon us a system of socialized medicine, one that they, who fancy themselves better than we, do not mean to impose upon themselves. And I think about our president, who continues to lie to us with impunity even as the last one did, twisting the truth* of what he previously said, in order to better ride the tide of politics, to win his own way, even if that win means bringing down the economy of the United States.

*First it was healthcare reform, now it's health insurance reform. First he said no middle class taxpayers making under $250,000 would pay a dime in new taxes, now he says that he doesn't mean that they should pay the whole burden. Etc. etc.

"So ends the American dream," says one of the foppish and bewigged foxhunters in the movie, as he lops the head off the effigy of George Washington. He wasn't counting on the endurance of patriots at Valley Forge. He wasn't counting on the British surrender at Yorktown, when the world was turned upside down.

Sons and Daughters of Liberty, flawed as her book might be, Naomi Wolf is right in this:

" . . . the Declaration's specific call to liberation from George III's tyranny is also a timeless contract that implicates each one of us, forever . . ." (p. 20).

So dies the American dream? By G-d, not while we live and breath, the fire of Liberty, ignited by those first American Revolutionaries, burning within us.

We see the Pols running scared from us. We know this by the plummeting approval rating for Congress and the Executive. We know this by the viciousness with which their press whores attack an ordinary housewife who dares stand up to a twice-turncoat politician from Pennsylvania for her termerity when she said:

"I don't believe that this is just about healthcare. It's not about TARP, it's not about left and right; this is about the systematic dismantling of this country . . ."

Now that we know this truth, we must stand together as brothers and sisters in Liberty, arm in arm, and say to these would-be lords and ladies, "You shall not pass these bills that put in place the structure of tyranny over us for your own momentary power and profit. It shall not stand."

For as the character Tom Dobbs watches the celebration in Philadelphia after the victory at Yorktown and the winning of a new country, the likes of which the world have never seen, he seems to speak directly across the generations to us, who claim its inheritance:

"My lost family comes back to me in all these I see before me. I feel Kaitlyn in the young ones on high released from all they suffered here. I see also in these shining faces the bright-eyed, tender and gentle face of Daisy McConnahay. Many from different lands be they exiled or fled from want of respect and free thought, now share a home where as one or all, they will have a voice that can be heard. No more to be divided into the lowly and privileged; but equal in chance and opportunity. And all the children of all the children to come will know this of this word: Revolution. And what it meant and never let down their will to protect it."

A fictional character comes back to admonish us that the dreams of those whose fought and died to secure Liberty to themselves and to us that we should never let down our will to protect it. In the words of the founders:

"[W]hen a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security." (Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, 1776).

Never let down your will to protect precious Liberty.

Been There, Done That. Got the Cartoon.

This cartoon is from the Chicago Tribune, published in 1934. The guy on the ass is Rexford Tugwell, a New Deal agricultural economist. The other people in the wagon are also members of FDR's 'brain trust"--Ivy League social scientists and economists.

The sign on the side of the wagon says: "YOUNG PINKIES FROM COLUMBIA AND HARVARD"

The sign on the back of it says: "DEPLETING THE RESOURCES OF THE SOUNDEST GOVERNMENT IN THE WORLD"

Stalin stands in the right foreground saying: "HOW RED THE SUNRISE IS GETTING" as the Brain Trustees throw bags of money into the mud.

At the bottom left, Karl Marx is seen painting a sign that says:

"PLAN OF ACTION FOR U.S.

________________________

SPEND! SPEND! SPEND

UNDER THE GUISE OF

RECOVERY--BUST THE

GOVERNMENT-- BLAME

THE CAPITALISTS FOR

THE FAILURE--

JUNK THE

CONSTITUTION

AND DECLARE

A

DICTATORSHIP"

To the side, Marx comments: "IT WORKED IN RUSSIA!"

What's that old crack about "those who fail to learn from history . . .?"

Except, at the beginning of the Great Depression, the U.S. government was in the black--thus "the soundest government in the world." This time we are so far in the red that the Pols don't even try to explain how we will repay it. We can't. We're not even SPEND! SPEND! SPENDing our own money.

Just one question. Are we doomed to repeat total war, too?

Edited once for clarity.EHL

Why I Am Contributing to the Great HDTV Crisis

On Saturday, when I read my local newspaper, I discovered that I am contributing to a great crisis. In an editorial entitled Courage, Couch Potatoes the editor of the Albuquerque Journal wrote:

"On Feb. 17, U.S. television goes digital and those who are not prepared will go without until they get the converter gizmo . . . a prominent part (of the government program for this conversion) are the coupons that the federal government has made available to defray much of the cost (to consumers).
"The coupons have run out before an estimated 6.8% of households with TVs took advantage of them . . . The administration-in-waiting, not blind to a disaster of such proportions, is urging Congress to delay the switchover from analog to digital signals that has been in the making since 2005. Or maybe National Guardsmen could deploy truck-mounted flat-sceens in the hardest hit areas . . ." (Albuquerque Journal, Saturday, January 10, p. A6, parenthetical statements mine)

The assumption of the editor is that if you have not got your coupon, it is because you are too lazy to get up from watching TV to get it.

In the Sunday paper, there were two separate articles about the converter gizmos, how to get them, and a big warning to get them right away, even if you don't have the coupon, so that at least one TV will be available in your house for watching broadcast TV. Apparently, the government says that New Mexico is one of those hardest hit areas, with something like 12% of us being without the HDTV Converter Gizmo Coupon Bail-out. (I wonder where the New Mexico National Guard will deploy those truck-mounted flat-screens?)

Maybe the Admin-in-Waiting is worried that New Mexicans are going to miss out on the new season of 24? That can't be it. I heard that Jack Bower talked back to Congress on last night's season opener.

I admit it. Ragamuffin House is one of those dead beats with nary a coupon or a converter box in the house. It is not because we have cable or satellite TV. And it is not because we are too lazy to turn off the TV to get one. It is because we rarely watch broadcast TV.

Now before you call Child Protective Services, we have not neglected the one child in our household. We actually own a TV. And it is in line-of-sight with all the pretty antennas up on Sandia Peak. It is a rather nice TV, in fact, although it is an older model (2003) and would need the converter box to pick up HD broadcast TV. But why bother? The last time we all watched broadcast TV was in the fall of 2007, when PBS ran the Jewish Americans series. Thus the following imaginary conversation between the administration-in-waiting (AIW) and us:

AIW: "But, but . . . how did you watch the DNC?!"
Ragamuffin House: "We didn't. We listened to selected speeches from both conventions on the local talk-radio. Our favorite was Sarah Palin. She didn't sound much like a politician. She was actually funny."
AIW: "Talk radio! We know who you are! You must be one of those bitter people, clinging to your god and guns!"
Ragamuffin House: "Nope. Not bitter. And that's G-d with a capital 'G', smart aleck! Hmm. We are card-carrying members of the NRA. We just bought more guns and ammo in case Obama Messiah raises the taxx (it's always a four-letter word) on them. But didn't you note that we watched PBS for six whole Wednesday evenings in 2007? We can't be conservatives. We're just libertarians."
AIW: "But how will we invade your home with propaganda for immoral government programs, ads for trans-fats that we want you to crave before we make eating them illegal, and political double-talk about how we can spend our way into recovery?"
Ragamuffin House: "I guess you'll have to deploy the black helicopters. We'll be waiting, our tin-foil hats firmly on our heads. We'd love to show you that beautiful Winchester 30-30 we just bought. Just look for the 'Sedillo Welcomes the Ministry of Truth' sign on the Sedillo Hill Road bridge over I-40. You can't miss it. That's the bridge that had the 'Wanted: Osama Bin Laden, Dead or Alive' sign back in the fall of '01. The American flags are still there. Wah-hoo!"

But seriously, we do not use our TV for watching television. We use it to watch DVD's that we select. I wonder how many of the other 6.8 percent of households in the US (and the slightly larger percentage in the west) who have not got the "gizmo" have the same reason that we do?

We do not need Uncle Sam to help us buy the gizmo. We can choose our own technology, thank you very much. We are not lazy. We are not couch potatoes. And you don't have to send in the Marines. We can choose to buy the previous season of 24 on DVD.
And if we really want to see Hillary's $3,000 pant-suits, there's always You Tube.

We're just not huge fans of the TV wasteland.