As IF Times

link George Bush’s torture admission is a dismal moment for democracy | World news | The Guardian.

Usually topics such as this don’t particularly lend themselves to skewering humor.  What does however, are the people who portray a disturbingly invalid perspective of such a topic.   Thankfully, over in this part of the world, we are spared from having to read the nonsense that emanates from the U.K.’s  rabidly left wing bird cage liner, The Guardian.  Over here, we know that op-eds in The New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and most amusingly, The Huffington Post, are so outlandishly left wing in their views as to be comical and dismissed as delusional prose.  In Canada, we have of course, The Globe and Mail.

Today, when reading an ‘inflammatory’ headline, all you need to do is check the source to determine the general bent of the article and then virtually dismiss its contents if the source is any of the above publications.  The gentleman writing this particular article printed in The Guardian is by profession an academic and a lawyer no less.  On the heels of the release of George Bush’s memoirs, Decision Points, this Phillipe Sands latches onto the President’s admission of allowing waterboarding as evidence of international crime:

“…George Bush’s straight admission that he personally authorised waterboarding – an act of torture and a crime under US and international law – marks a dismal moment for western democracies and the rule of law. When again will the US be able to direct others to meet their human rights standards? Certainly not before it takes steps to bring its own house in order…”

People like Sands and academics in general are ground zero for the  disease that affects much of western society today.  The inability to distinguish the big picture from small minutiae hampers them from advancing  intelligent thought and in fact detracts significantly from their credibility.  What most academics lack and thus mitigates their views,  is much real world experience.  Cloistered as they are in their circle of peers, the predictable result is what is clinically referred to as cluster coitus.  Actually, it’s a more earthier expression, but most will get the drift.  Ideas and theories are circulated, propagated and validated in their community, which sadly, are then transmitted to the fertile minds of naive students as being gospel.  Once some intellectual dogma is anointed as inviolable truth, there can be no questioning of its merits.  Sounds eerily similar to a certain religious group. An obvious example of this misguided mindset is the acceptance of socialism as the desired model for societies despite having zero evidence over the history of mankind as to its effectiveness.  It’s forgotten that they live in a world of academic theory.

Another concept so roundly embraced by all ‘civilized’ societies and brought to issue here by Mr. Sands, is the rule of law.  I’m all for it. Laws generally protect the public from the individual and the individual from the public.  In an ideal world, everyone lives and lets live.  No one encroaches on someone else’s property, no one tries to convince anyone else of the superiority of their faith.  No one tries to convince anyone else how peaceful they are under threat of being subject to being bombed if they don’t believe it. Tell that to the erstwhile Cat Stevens. 

One of the principles most people would easily subscribe to is, thou shalt not kill. Sounds good on paper.  In real life, there are those whose crimes against the humanity of their own people are so heinous that a few years of hard time, counselling and then a stint in rehab just isn’t adequate.  It’s possible that guys like Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung and Saddam Hussein were just misunderstood, but on the weight of the evidence, is the world really worse off without them? 

 In the case of being ultimately responsible for the welfare of hundreds of millions of people, a nation’s leader has the obligation to consider their interests above the comfort of a few enemy combatants.  Especially during the course of war.  I think we can all agree that President Bush did not take the task of questioning the Al Queda captives lightly and presumably not for any personal amusement.   During that time of duress when nothing was known as to scale or type of impending threats, it defies common sense to worry about the sensibilities of some combatants versus the safety of an entire nation.   I think most people would consider that not dying in a fireball is preferable to a few guys getting a bit wet and offending the philosophical convictions of some academics. 

So spare us the moral tsk tsking of guys like Sands.  It’s fine to pretend to champion high minded principles, but in the real world, there are those who view ill advised application of principles as a weakness.  I don’t know who first expressed the saying that if people were willing to be sheep, there are many others who are willing to be wolves. 

This whole diatribe brings to mind the classic and best scene from the 1992 movie, A Few Good Men, featuring Jack Nicholson as Colonel Nathan Jessup when interrogated on the witness stand in the death of a young marine.  From the website IMDB.com:

“…Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to… “

link My Way News – French students up protests over retirement reform.

As if.  So the cameras are trained onto ‘students’ who are allegedly all steamed about the French Government’s proposal to raise the mandatory retirement age from 60, all the way to 62.  Sacre Bleu! Students are doing this….because…??  This is obviously absurd since these earnest ‘students’ are missing something reasonably important in order to protest against job conditions, namely a job. 

If all they’ve ever done is to read Tolstoy, play les video games and drink beer for 2 or 3 years, they’re hardly in a position to protest about their latter working years.  Heck, most students I know would be happy to have any job after graduation, never mind worry about  retirement issues.  This would be as valid as me  getting upset upon learning that Charlize Theron was going to stop dating men. 

More likely, some union thugs came by campus and offered free beer to any students who would show up for the chance to be protesting on TV.  Actually, from the looks of the crowd, they don’t even have to be students, being young and ethnic looking was enough.   Even if they were bona fide students captured on TV passionately tossing Molotov cocktails at the police,  it’s unlikely they were studying anything useful.  Probably law or philosophy students of which Entitlement 101 was a prerequisite.   Certainly not economics or any hard science.  As a side note, their education is also likely heavily subsidized by the state. 

If  they had some basic grounding in any kind of education which had links to reality, they would know about the concept of limited resources.  The theory goes that a female pig, or sow, has only so many nipples.  If you’re the 7th pig in a six nipple litter, well then you get less.  If you’re the 35th piglet, then your share is going to be even smaller.  The only logical things that can happen are the following:  a: get more nipples, b: have fewer piglets, or c: get more production from present nipples. 

France has finally come to face the consequences of generations of the entitlement mentality in their social system.  For the longest time, their 35 hour workweeks, lavish (by western standards) vacation allotments which can be 6 to 8 weeks per year, were the envy of liberal western politicians and union leaders.  In addition, the vast cradle to grave social net created what appeared to be the idyllic social system. So compelling was this system that naturally people from outside France all clamored to get in to get a ahare of the Gallic nipple.

Until now, when all of a sudden, there are, a: not enough nipples, b: more piglets and c: not enough production from present nipples.  But the entitlements that have been offered to society up until now are so entrenched that they are viewed as basic human rights for most in this fairy land.  To move the retirement age from 60 to 62?  Well, you may as well outlaw huffiness from French culture.

Look what’s happening in the U.K.  http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.187f08033fe68c98d16032a3c93790a9.501&show_article=1  Not quite the entitlements of France, but the same issue, that is, not enough money to fund civil service obligations. 

This is all very amusing perhaps and abstract to most people.  The fact is, this very same scenario will be repeated in north america very soon.  As federal, state and municipal budgets collapse from entitlements, the process to cull some retirement expenses will begin imminently.  We can expect ‘students’ and perhaps the odd union member to mount vocal and perhaps violent protests against the reduction of entitlements. The great nipple battle, coming here soon.