Farewell, W.

When people discover that I am not a Democrat, it's sort of like watching people try to ingest the idea that you can be Italian or Irish and not Catholic. Their next remark, "So you're a Republican." Well, no. Not quite. I deregistered as a Democrat and reregistered as an Independent. But I mostly vote for Republicans. Lesser of two evils. Two.

My major problem with George Bush also makes people blink when I say it. He was too nice. What we needed was the swaggering cowboy. What we got was No Child Left Behind...one of the most patently nauseating names for a law I ever heard of, and Islam the Religion of Peace.

Apparently I am not the only righty to feel this way.

The world is dominated by bullies and tyrants. Always has been. You cannot impress a bully or a tyrant by being nice. Speak softly if you want, but have to have the big stick. And use it. And when you do, do not apologize. Only ask if they want another blow.

I blame much of the corruption of liberalism on practical atheism. Liberals have imbibed a set of highminded moral principles (and poses) from a dying Christendom, but since they lack the lynchpin of Christendom --God and God's Son-- the whole enterprise is out of whack and self-destructive.

The world is an impossible place. And the human predicament is a predicament, not a temporary detour on the road to utopia. Christians (and Jews) understood that, in the end, it was God's job to handle the big picture. And although this world was understood as God's creation, it was so flawed that, in the end, it would have to be destroyed and replaced with "a new heaven and a new earth." Apparently even God found it incurable.

Liberals, being practical atheists, have to stand in for God and do all His jobs. They end up trying to be Christlike without Christ or God, and it just degenerates into niceness. Real religious believers, like Muslims, are utterly unimpressed by this. And liberals don't get it, because they do not know what real religious conviction is like. Deaf. And dumb.