The Fit Will Hit The Shan, Dennis!

Every day I see at least one car, usually more than one, sporting a bumper sticker that reads, "Buck Fush."

Apparently, some of our fellow Americans on the left find this message to be profound and witty. But it is not these individuals' presence or absence of wit or profundity that interests me here -- both are so obviously absent, no comments are necessary. It's their contempt for society and their narcissism that demand commentary.

Those blessed with common sense know there is a huge difference between public and private use of expletives. While the holiest among us might never utter an obscenity, most decent, even pious, individuals will use an occasional expletive in private under circumstances that can make its use morally, if not religiously, justifiable (as when using an expletive to describe some evil figure or after a heavy weight fell on one's toe).

But higher civilization has always regarded the use of expletives in public (outside of, let us say, theatrical performances) as a form of assault on civilization. That is why as a broadcaster I am prohibited from saying seven selected words on the air. No one monitors my private conversations, but just about everyone, at least until the 1960s, understood that there was something very wrong in saying such words on the radio or putting them on billboards.

That is why we have, as a society, crossed a line when people put expletives on bumper stickers ("S--t Happens," "Buck Fush") or use them in public in distinguished company -- as in newspaper interviews or campaign fund-raisers. Even the individual who puts a "Buck Fush" sticker on his or her car knows that the real "f-word" would constitute an assault on whatever remains of the concept of decency.

So what does the increasing ubiquity of such stickers tell us?

It says a lot about parts of the left. For one thing, it tells us that leftist anger -- make that hatred -- of its opponents is probably the greatest politically inspired hatred in the country. Certainly there were many on the right who hated former President Bill Clinton, and that hatred did at times reflect poorly on the right. But, to the best of my knowledge, no Clinton-hater ever put a "Cuck Flinton" bumper sticker on a car. Why not? Why didn't any conservatives who hated President Clinton do what some leftists who hate President Bush do and use expletives publicly? After all, "Cuck Flinton" is just as witty as "Buck Fush."

The answer is that parts of the left have little or no belief in the concept of "decency" as traditionally understood by Western civilization. They tend to dismiss such notions as bourgeois anachronisms; they place great value on individuals expressing themselves; and they view self-censorship as a form of fascism.

This latter reason is important: The '60s redefined narcissism as idealism. The individual's feelings became sacrosanct.

That is why the self-esteem movement -- the idea that how an individual feels about himself is far more important than what he actually accomplishes -- arose from the left.

And that is why you almost never hear a conservative say "I am offended" when reacting to a liberal speaker or writer, but it is quite commonplace for a liberal to use those words in reacting to someone from the right.

"Make love not war" was another example of placing one's feelings above other values. That is why it is a very good thing for the world that the previous generation, the one that fought Hitler, didn't believe in making love rather than war.

For more than a few people on the cultural left, public cursing is simply a form of self-expression, just as many on the left deemed graffiti to be. Indeed, public cursing may be defined as verbal graffiti, a defacement of the public square. But the people who believe in the sanctity of the public square are far more likely to be on the right. And that is why you will see and hear far more public profanity on the left than on the right.

House Elections by George!

Tom Cole earned a Ph.D. in British history from the University of Oklahoma, intending to become a college professor, but he came to his senses and to a zest for politics and now, in just his third term in the House of Representatives, he is chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. As such, he is charged with recruiting the candidates and honing the tactics that will transform Speaker Nancy Pelosi back to House minority leader. ``We are looking,'' says Cole, speaking unminced words about the Republican Party, ``like a beaten down stock.'' Nevertheless, he is sanguine regarding 2008: ``The positioning is good for us'' because ``we don't have to conquer new territory, we have to reclaim old territory.''

That is, 61 Democrats represent districts that George W. Bush carried in 2004. A 16-seat gain in 2008 would restore Republican control to the House.

Consider the second district in Kansas. Jim Ryun held the seat easily for five terms. In 2006, he lost to Nancy Boyda, who won with just 50.6 percent. In 2008, President George W. Bush will not be, as he was in 2006, a burden at the top of the ticket. And Kansas' popular Republican senator, Pat Roberts, will be on the ticket. And Kansas' popular Democratic governor, Kathleen Sebelius, who helped Democrats down the ballot in 2006, will be in the middle of her second term.

Might Democrats gain some seats they nearly won in 2006 -- for example, the then-open Chicago-area seat previously held for 16 terms by Republican Henry Hyde? The Democrats' novice candidate, Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in the Iraq War, got 48.65 percent against Republican Peter Roskam. Cole says he hopes the Democrats will throw resources at that seat because they will be wasting dollars, given that they could not win it as an open seat. He is too polite to add that they could not win it with Bush as a weight in Republican saddles.
Although Cole is playing to win, and expects to win, in 2008, retaking the House may be, he says, ``a two-step dance for us.'' He thinks Republicans have a good chance of winning control, even if they do not win the White House. He notes that after Republicans lost 48 House seats in 1958, they gained 21 seats in 1960, when John Kennedy was narrowly elected president. And if Republicans do not win control of the House in 2008 and a Democrat is elected president, Republicans have a really excellent chance of capturing the House in 2010, because the party that wins the presidency usually loses House seats in the next midterm election.

Cole wishes he ``could make every (Republican) donor watch C-SPAN,'' to see what House Democrats are doing. He can't, but he savors such attention-riveting events as Pelosi's trip to Syria, which he thinks was so ``wonderful'' for Republicans he would gladly finance a trip by her to Iran.

The last time House Republicans suffered a defeat as large as they did in 2006 (30 seats lost) was in the 1974 post-Watergate election (48 seats lost). That was the year their third-ranking leader was born -- Florida's Adam Putnam, the House Republican Conference chairman.
Still, Democrats have their smallest House majority since 1955. And Republicans still hold 10 more seats than they did at their peak during Ronald Reagan's presidency. This, in spite of the fact that Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, and his winning margin of 2.5 points in 2004 was the smallest in history for a re-elected president.

Cole is planning as though Republicans will have to retake the House the unusual way they did in 1994 -- forming a majority without the help of a Republican president, and perhaps without much help from the Republican presidential candidate. Because perhaps 21 states are going to hold presidential primaries on Feb. 5, 2008, some states that ``we are not going to carry'' in the 2008 presidential election (he does not list any but surely he has in mind such states as Illinois and New York) are going to be important in selecting the Republican nominee.

But Republican House candidates may get considerable help from the Democrats' presidential candidate. Cole thinks that Democrats, who he says have more litmus tests than Republicans do for their presidential candidates, are so convinced that they are going to win the White House, they are not resisting what they enjoy surrendering to -- the tug from the party's left.
Americans seem to like the government at least somewhat divided. They are apt to have that for a while.

Uhhh...More Global Warming - Stop Please!

In a campaign without peacetime precedent, the media-entertainment-environmental complex is warning about global warming. Never, other than during the two world wars, has there been such a concerted effort by opinion-forming institutions to indoctrinate Americans, 83 percent of whom now call global warming a ``serious problem.'' Indoctrination is supposed to be a predicate for action commensurate with professions of seriousness.

For example, Democrats could demand that the president send the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate so they can embrace it. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 in opposition to any agreement which would, like the protocol, require significant reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions in America and some other developed nations but would involve no ``specific scheduled commitments'' for 129 ``developing'' countries, including the second, fourth, 10th, 11th, 13th and 15th largest economies (China, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico and Indonesia). Forty-two of the senators serving in 1997 are gone. Let's find out if the new senators disagree with the 1997 vote.

Do they also disagree with Bjorn Lomborg, author of ``The Skeptical Environmentalist''? He says: Compliance with Kyoto would reduce global warming by an amount too small to measure. But the cost of compliance just to the United States would be higher than the cost of providing the entire world with clean drinking water and sanitation, which would prevent 2 million deaths (from diseases like infant diarrhea) a year and prevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill each year.

Nature designed us as carnivores, but what does nature know about nature? Meat has been designated a menace. Among the 51 exhortations in Time magazine's ``global warming survival guide'' (April 9), No. 22 says a BMW is less responsible than a Big Mac for ``climate change,'' that conveniently imprecise name for our peril. This is because the world meat industry produces 18 percent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions, more than transportation produces. Nitrous oxide in manure (warming effect: 296 times greater than that of carbon) and methane from animal flatulence (23 times greater) mean that ``a 16 ounce T-bone is like a Hummer on a plate.''

Ben & Jerry's ice cream might be even more sinister: A gallon of it requires electricity guzzling refrigeration, and four gallons of milk produced by cows that simultaneously produce eight gallons of manure and flatulence with eight gallons of methane. The cows do this while consuming lots of grain and hay, which are cultivated by using tractor fuel, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides, and transported by fuel-consuming trains and trucks.
Newsweek says most food travels at least 1,200 miles to get to Americans' plates, so buying local food will save fuel. Do not order halibut in Omaha.

Speaking of Hummers, perhaps it is environmentally responsible to buy one and squash a Prius with it. The Prius hybrid is, of course, fuel-efficient. There are, however, environmental costs to mining and smelting (in Canada) 1,000 tons a year of zinc for the battery-powered second motor, and the shipping of the zinc 10,000 miles -- trailing a cloud of carbon -- to Wales for refining and then to China for turning it into the component that is then sent to a battery factory in Japan.

Opinions differ as to whether acid rain from the Canadian mining and smelting operation is killing vegetation that once absorbed carbon dioxide. But a report from CNW Marketing Research (``Dust to Dust: The Energy Cost of New Vehicles from Concept to Disposal'') concludes that in ``dollars per lifetime mile,'' a Prius (expected life: 109,000 miles) costs $3.25, compared to $1.95 for a Hummer H3 (expected life: 207,000 miles).

The CNW report states that a hybrid makes economic and environmental sense for a purchaser living in the Los Angeles basin, where fuel costs are high and smog is worrisome. But environmental costs of the hybrid are exported from the basin.

We are urged to ``think globally and act locally,'' as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has done with proposals to reduce California's carbon dioxide emissions 25 percent by 2020. If California improbably achieves this, at a cost not yet computed, it will have reduced global greenhouse-gas emissions 0.3 percent.

The question is:
Suppose the costs over a decade of trying to achieve a local goal are significant. And suppose the positive impact on the globe's temperature is insignificant -- and much less than, say, the negative impact of one year's increase in the number of vehicles in one country (e.g., India). If so, are people who recommend such things thinking globally but not clearly?