Required Reading

Rachel Lucas visits Auschwitz. Read it.

h/t Red Stick Rant

If you don't vote for the "ONE", you are either a racist or ignorant peasant

Apparently YOU will be held in contempt by all the world if you don't vote for 0Bama. Makes me want to send $50 to Sarah and that Sailor...
How will I sleep at night?

The world's verdict will be harsh if the US rejects the man it yearns for
by Johnathan Freedland (effete poncy patronizing Pommy columnist)
UK Guardian
excerpts:
If Americans choose McCain, they will be turning their back on the rest of the world, choosing to show us four more years of the Bush-Cheney finger. And I predict a deeply unpleasant shift.
If it is deemed to have been about race - that Obama was rejected because of his colour - the world's verdict will be harsh. (Of course, THAT would be the only reason given by our press...)

Even if it's not ethnic prejudice, but some other aspect of the culture wars, that proves decisive, the point still holds. For America to make a decision as grave as this one - while the planet boils and with the US fighting two wars - on the trivial basis that a hockey mom is likable and seems down to earth, would be to convey a lack of seriousness, a fleeing from reality,... (It CAN'T BE because Obama is a flaming socialist from the corrupt Chicago political machine, with no experience in anything based in reality...)

Of course I know that even to mention Obama's support around the world is to hurt him. Incredibly, that large Berlin crowd damaged Obama at home, branding him the "candidate of Europe" and making him seem less of a patriotic American. (Nah, he does that himself.) But what does that say about today's America, that the world's esteem is now unwanted? If Americans reject Obama, they will be sending the clearest possible message to the rest of us - and, make no mistake, we shall hear it. (What!? You haven't heard the big F##k You! we've been saying to european leftists for the last few years? The world's esteem? Why would we want the esteem of failed or failing states like yours? Btw, if you listen to our press and leftists, but I repeat myself, the world ALREADY HATES US! What do we have to lose?)

However much fun it it would be to fisk this opinion piece, Rachel Lucas does it so much better:

Yeah, you’ll hear it, like a big fart in your general direction. Tough shit.

In all seriousness though. I can’t speak for any other Stupid American, but Europe and Rest of World? Wanna know why I don’t give a toss what you think? Because you’re doing it wrong.

You’re doing so many things wrong, in my view, that I want my country to be very different from yours.

That is, unless there’s a logical argument for why I would take political advice from people who live in places with cultures that are no more successful - and often far less successful - than my own. Freedland even helps out by listing some as examples:

Germany, France, Britain, Russia, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

And of course, the comments are just as much fun: From a letter to the editor
Frankly my dear, we don’t give a damn who England or Europe or anyone else thinks ought to be President of the United States and leader of the free world,...
When you figure out how to run your own country with some measure of freedom and dignity, maybe then we’d consider listening to your advice…

And an email from the commenter that described Mr. Freedland so well (above):
Howdy there — just one of your provincial American readers weighing in on your latest missive, which was so full of Wrong that it’s hard to figure out where to begin to rebut it, and which I can’t hope to rebut in full without devoting much more time to composing an e-mail than you really deserve, so I’ll just touch on a few high (low) points, and maybe mock you a bit while I’m at it.

And I will leave you with the words of Mr Freedland. Maybe he's finally getting our message:
Until now, anti-Americanism has been exaggerated and much misunderstood: outside a leftist hardcore, it has mostly been anti-Bushism, opposition to this specific administration. But if McCain wins in November, that might well change. Suddenly Europeans and others will conclude that their dispute is with not only one ruling clique, but Americans themselves.

Finally, I think they might be getting it. My question is, "Why do the Europeans care about OUR opinion of them?" Americans don't care if the rest of the world respects our opinions.....So why should we care about theirs? If they want Obama so much, let him run for office in England.

Election Day should be April 16th.

Rachel Lucas has the world's best rant on paying taxes. She knows the meaning of "butthurt."

Remember, April 15th is B.A.G. day. Celebrate your rights on the day that GOVERNMENT loves best. Buy a Gun!

Voting for a President - What to do, what to do....

I DO NOT like McCain. I think he is a democrat in disguise with fascist tendencies. I think he's a war hero. I also think that he has no clue on being a true conservative.

I'm not that fond of Romney. He's a liberal too. Because he is a former Governor, he has a better record. His record does not deal with "making" law, but in either vetoing, or approving and then executing, laws made by others on a state level. So he has had less chance to offend the Constitution.

Both are "flip-floppers."

I don't know whether I will write in Fred Thompson for the primary. I think that it will depend on how the vote is going. I want to "send a message" but, my fear is that, once again, liberals will cross over. And the vote, in our open primary, will go to John McCain.

And I don't know how I will vote, if I do, on election day. One persuasive argument says that if I don't vote for McCain, if he is the candidate, I am crazy; that I'm letting principles push me into political suicide. And they are right. A Clinton or Obama Presidency will hurt this country terribly. But will a McCain Presidency be much better? Rachel Lucas thinks that I, and others like me, are insane:

Okay fine. Not your ideal Republican, despite his pro-war, pro-killin’-terrorists record. But. But. BUT.

Just what in the hell kind of crack are Ann Coulter and lots of other conservatives (even the normally brilliant Michelle Malkin) smoking when they say they won’t vote for him if he’s the Republican nominee? Coulter actually said last night on Hannity and Colmes that she would campaign for Hillary instead. Granted, she probably didn’t mean that, but good god damn!

I’ve read several dozen blogs yesterday and this morning, and there are even comments on my own blog, saying that if McCain is the candidate, they won’t vote at all. ARE YOU PEOPLE SERIOUS?

Let me get this straight: you’d rather have Hillary Clinton, a bona fide socialist, liar, all-around bad person, as president. You’d rather have Obama, the senator with the most liberal voting record, as president.

Really? I throw up my hands in disgust. I truly do.

Comments by such brilliant essayists like Bill Whittle, with whom I agree on many things, looks at it this way:

We’ve lost 4,500 soldiers fighting in Iraq. If you think I am going to sit back and let Hilary or Obama cut and run, and have those brave men and women die in vain, simply because I don’t like John McCain (and I most emphatically do not like John McCain), then you have another think coming.
Because, my friends, here is the message to the GOP from 2008: A perfect dream candidate who is not elected is WORSE that a compromised, flawed, annoying one that gets us half of what we want. You may not like that, but there it is.That’s reality. Politics is the art of compromise.
Two quotes (both of which I have heard attributed to Ronald Reagan) keep me sane in this mess: “Someone who is with you 80% of the time is not your enemy.” (Even if he is only with you 30% of the time, that is still better than someone who is with you NONE of the time.) Also, “Would you rather have 50% (or 30%) of something, or 100% of nothing?

But, yet again, I am faced with the fact that McCain is a lying, liberal, fascistic, statist politician that has no respect for my values, ideas, or philosophy. And he has demonstrated that time and time again!

Romney, on the other hand, is merely a flip-flopping, ambitious, liberal politician.

But Bill's comments about the troops hits home.

This sucks.