I am not bothered in the least that Mitt Romney is a Mormon.

You know, Mormonism is a cult.  Such is a claim with quite a lot of traction in Southern Baptist churches, anyway.  I got that at least twice that I can remember during my adolescence in such a church (which, despite its shortcomings, was more good than bad for me).  I’ve had two people express that concern to me about Mitt Romney.  One is still gaga for our dear Barack, so her vote isn’t in play anyway.  However, she wondered about what kind of effect that might have with Southern religious voters, to which my response was a hearty “none.”  Think about it:  wouldn’t folks who think Romney’s in a cult be the same folks who think Obama’s a stealth Muslim?

So where are they going to go anyway?

And to anyone who’s genuinely, first and foremost put off by Romney being a Mormon:  seriously?  Can you really find anything in that narrative that’s any more objectively ridiculous than any other major religion?  Now I know it’s trendy and probably metrosexual or something to be a jackass loudmouth atheist.  But good luck finding a major presidential candidate without a Judeo-Christian profession.

So within that framework, you’re going to excoriate a guy because there’s a bit more to the story of his faith than that of a “normal” Christian?

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A couple of Rush’s callers yesterday were stoking the narrative that the damned liberals were hijacking the polling and that Newt still had a great chance today.  Rush didn’t stoke with them, but he didn’t throw cold water on the idea either.  We’ll know soon.

I stuck a NEWT 2012 sticker to the Technical Writing Express yesterday.  Might as well.  It’s difficult for me to see from whence it would come, but I’m trying to remain hopeful that February will bring some excitement to this race.

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Most of Alabama’s illegal immigration law—widely regarded as the toughest in the country—went into effect on September 29.

It seems “jobs Americans won’t do” might be a rather more diaphanous notion than any of the phrase’s supporters realized, eh?

We’ve got to get over the idea that it’s harmless to allow, and in some cases even actively enable, illegal aliens to access our country’s job market and government benefits essentially unfettered.  The above result startles me in its degree.  Clearly, it does matter—a lot.

Even if you believe it is a legitimate function of government to provide for people without regard for whether the government actually belongs to those people, how is it compassion for us to cut our own throats?  Is that not what we’re doing?

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Bring it!

Congratulations, Newt.  Keep playing your success with discretion and great things just might happen.

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If he’d been this guy since September, where would he be now?

I can’t recall ever seeing a standing ovation at a debate.

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It also appears very much as if this occurred in Afghanistan, these soldiers are U.S. Marines, and the bodies are Taliban.

“It was inhuman and despicable, an unforgivable act,” said Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi.  (Good to see he found some downtime to comment in between beating and raping women, locking children in boxes to suffocate, and so forth.  But maybe he’s not on those teams.)

The video has been universally condemned by U.S. officials as well.  This condemnation is, of course, correct.  However, its degree is absurd.  I think we have here an administration eager to once again prostrate and flog the United States for the world, and thankful for the opportunity to do so.  Why, they even gets to flavor the whole thing with their thinly-disguised contempt for the military!

A proper response—a strong, mature response—would have been a sincere apology and an assurance of thorough investigation (followed immediately by execution of said investigation, and punishment as appropriate).  The end.

(Actually I’ll put a small asterisk here—*—and say yeah, they could stop today and be leaving it at essentially that, and if they do, then I’ll respond accordingly.  Not holding my breath.)

For one thing, this behavior is clearly very far out of line with how the huge majority of American soldiers conduct themselves, and our highest officials excitedly wallowing in it lends it perceived credence it doesn’t deserve.  For another, we don’t know what immediately preceded this, but we do know they’re not on a nature hike over there.  It doesn’t excuse the activity, but let’s please consider that a 42-second video might be robbing us significant context.

(You know, as we gaze at our iPads, sip our Starbucks, and quack about these horrendous atrocities our boys committed.)

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Congratulations to Rick Santorum for winning Iowa.

Yes, I know Mitt Romney had eight more votes (at this writing), but such a slim margin somehow seems almost less becoming than if he’d lost by 1,000 votes.

Of course, what Iowa means long-term is definitely arguable.  It’s not been a particularly reliable indicator of the eventual winner.  It does tend to cement a few intermediate narratives, though.  I think the biggest immediate takeaways from last night are:

• Newt’s unambiguously back on the ropes.  Tough to say what he’ll do—isn’t it always?—but he hasn’t much time at all to right things.
• Even her staunchest advocates must now acknowledge that Michele Bachmann is done.  That toothpick is coming out spotless.  (Recall this is the state of her birth, and as Jim Geraghty noted, she finished just six points ahead of you and me.)  We’ll see her again, but it’s time for her to fold her tent for 2012.
• The incessant application of “inevitable” to Mitt Romney, executed primarily by mainstream media and other Obama supporters, has not made it so.  I mean, eventual nominee McCain finished fourth in Iowa in 2008, but Romney spent a lot more time and effort there.

Now Santorum has his own problems, and I don’t call myself a big fan.  However, he is certainly a more credible “conservative” than Mr. Romney.  Also, his unapologetic embrace of Christ means he’s guaranteed to generate at least a few days’ worth of polite discourse from our oh-so-civil, tolerant, and loving friends on the left.  Have a look?

Let’s see what Santorum does with his moment.

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• Did we have this many debates last time?  I’m kind of glad that stage is over.  I’m ready for my dripping contempt of Barack Obama to have a face.
• The correct response to the loss of the UAV in Iran was taking it out with an airstrike (wow, Dick Cheney was right again!), with 30 minutes of humanitarian notice.  The incorrect response was saying “may we please please please have our little plane back, you mighty mullahs?”
• I love Condoleezza Rice.  VP?  I’m in.
• Merry War on Christmas!  Mark Steyn can’t wait to see what those courageous atheists come up with for Ramadan.
• The eagerness with which we relinquish substantive history because an evil, obnoxious minority dictates its terms to us depresses me.  (A longtime net acquaintance I know to be intelligent has decided that the Confederate battle flag and/or navy jack stands only for seething racism.)
• You know, I think it’s all the same hand-wringing tongue-cluckers who are so eager to emphasize the word “church” when describing those Westboro Baptist idiots.
• Night night, you rotten bastard.  “Ronery” no more, eh?  I’m sure the eighth circle of hell is crowded.

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Paul’s position is essentially that the United States has enemies in the Middle East because we meddle.  If we’d stop bombing and invading and just mind our own business, then we wouldn’t have an Islamist terror problem anymore.  I find this quite naive, mostly because I think it pretends to know too much about what our respective goals and objectives are.  The assumption is that everyone in the world is wired that way—or if there are dissenters, there aren’t enough to matter—and that if we’ll all just leave each other alone, we’ll have trade agreements and the honey will flow and so forth.

The problem is that far too many people have a fire in the belly that explicitly tells them not to leave folks alone.  This can be one of the oldest sentiments there is:  “I’m going to take that because I want it and I don’t believe you can stop me.”  Perhaps more germanely, it can be a drive to implement sharia law (and you know, I can’t think about sharia at all without chuckling at the memory of all those shrieking “theocracy” during the Bush administration).  I think there are dangerous levels of both out there, and I think it takes the biggest kid on the block imposing his will to keep them in check.

Consequently I reject utterly any notion of parity as a guiding principle in foreign policy.  Mutually beneficial is best, of course, and that’s possible with many nations.  (Gee, that list of “many nations” tends to include those with similar values to ours.  Coincidence?  Ha!)  But if impossible, then American interests prevail.  And when I consider that America imposing its will tends to have as its goal the lack of someone inferior imposing his will, I prefer it to any plausible alternative.  We’re not going to have a globe of equals.  We’re going to have the biggest kid calling a lot of the shots, and so I want to be the biggest kid.

Ugly American?  All right.  If you insist.

There is certainly still plenty of discussion for reasonable people.  Whence nation-building?  We can talk about whether the United States should “(embark) on decades-long, trillion-dollar campaigns to make them love us” or “quick ten-million-dollar lessons in why they should fear us,” as John Derbyshire so eloquently expressed.  I definitely tend toward the second position.  Radical Islamists, or two-bit dictators, or whoever can hate America all they want, and as long as that hatred also contains a goodly dose of fear, it doesn’t bother me a whit.

No greater friend; no worse enemy.

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I’ve always said, whenever the topic comes up with someone, that Facebook scales well.  “It takes as much time as you have for it,” I’ve said to the friend considering an account, or the friend wondering about his/her usage.  Well, I let that get away from me somewhere, and I’m not sure where.

So I’m reclaiming it.  I’m deliberately repurposing it.  The prospect of getting rid of my account altogether never survives close examination with me, because I do get substantial value from it.  I have a few correspondences that I enjoy quite a bit, and they would not have happened without Facebook.  I enjoy the reconnection with decades-ago folks.  I enjoy the messages from Beyonce and Shania Twain, begging me to return their calls.  Ha!

But seriously, Facebook should be a means, not an end.

Perhaps most significantly, going forward, I’m going to try very hard to be apolitical here.  I’ve been discussing and arguing politics online for 18 years now, and I have determined to my satisfaction that Facebook is worse for that part of my brain than any other environment in which I’ve spent any amount of time.  It’s like this:  If you and I share an approach and a set of beliefs, it takes no effort at all for me to throw some red meat out there and get you to clap me on the back.  Conversely, it’s just as easy to piss you off if you don’t agree with me.

But then what?  See, almost always, that’s all that ever happens.

And part of me says fine.  You know, a cheeseburger and fries passed through a window is sometimes just what you want, right?  The larger problem I have with it is that it robs energy from what I really want to accomplish, which is to reach the persuadable.

Whether you’re clapping me on the back or slinking away irritated when I throw red meat out there, you do share one thing:  you’re not persuadable.

One problem with the way I’ve done things is that I’ve put a link out here and there, and perhaps followed it up with a little bit of conversation, and my mind puts a check mark on it like I’ve discussed politics meaningfully (when it’s nothing compared to a considered post at BoWilliams.com, for example).  Then I have diminished motivation for said considered post.  (You know, the thing that actually gets Googled?  the thing that someone might read and think about?)

Another problem with it—dare I say, the more important one—is personal.  If you’re able to read this, then we have a connection.  It meant enough to us that one of us asked, and the other clicked Confirm.

I would rather celebrate what we have together, rather than highlight our (in some cases, severe) political differences.

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