Hat tip to Dafydd at Big Lizards for pointing out this most excellent post from Gates of Vienna, concerning something I alluded to in a recent post; Moral Equivalancy:

Everyone knows what Moral Equivalence is. We get a big dose of it every day from the newspapers, from the TV, from the teachers in our public schools, and from our government officials.

Moral Equivalence is the worldview tells us that there’s no real distinction between good and bad, between God and the Devil.

It says that there’s no difference between Us and Them.

We see the examples of it all the time. The Israelis and the Palestinians — the “cycle of violence” and the “peace process”. Islamic terrorists and the American military — they kill civilians, but, hey, so do we. The capitalists and the communists — sure, the Soviets were bad, but we interned Japanese-Americans! And look what we’re doing to the environment! And the poor people in our inner cities have no health insurance!

And so on and so forth, ad nauseam.

One of the prerequisites for a true Moral Equivocator is a deep-seated and ineradicable loathing for one’s own culture. And, since all the practitioners of Moral Equivalence are Westerners, this means a deep-seated loathing for Western Civilization. There is no act so despicable, no atrocity so abominable, that a Moral Equivocator cannot make it exactly the same as something that we Westerners do.

Call it a Reverse Philosopher’s Stone — it turns all the gold into lead.

They behead schoolchildren. We allow schoolchildren go without free dental care. Same thing.

Lot’s more great stuff in the post.  Go check it out!

Though typically being something of an early adopter, I have stayed away from HD video disks to date, due to the format war that is going on right now, between the two “standards”: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.

For those of us old enough to remember the original format war of VHS vs. Betamax, this is deja-vu all over again.  Like that conflict, one format has slightly better technical specifications, but the other is more industry friendly, and less expensive.  In the first format war, VHS eventually won out, even though Betamax was a superior format, with better run times on smaller tape catridges, with superior resolution.

In essence, the technical differences in HD formats (like most things) boils down to size… or at least capacity:  HD-DVD (dual layer) stores about 8 hours of HD video; Blu-Ray stores about 9.  Now, there are various tweaks being looked at, like triple or quad layer, but these would end up being Data functions, not Media for entertainment purposes.  Unless you wanted to put the entire Lord of the Rings movie trilogy (extended versions) on one Disk…

And, to date, HD-DVD players are less expensive, even though there are more manufacturers supporting Blu-Ray at this time.

But what is really going to tip the scales for HD-DVD is Porn (courtesy of Yahoo/Reuters):

James McQuivey, a principal analyst at technology research firm Forrester, said in the VHS-versus-Betamax war, porn provided a significant boost for the winning format.

He also noted the adult entertainment industry has often paved the way with new uses of technology — such as streaming video on the Internet — and said porn could help tip the scales in the current DVD format battle.

“If the porn industry wanted to break the logjam of HD-DVD and Blu-ray, it could,” McQuivey said. “If they said ‘We are going to go with HD-DVD’ you would see a few million homes immediately go out and buy HD-DVD players. They have that power.”

It is a potential weapon that one side, at least, has ignored. Instead, Blu-ray backer Sony Corp.(6758.T) blocked manufacturers from producing porn DVDs in that format — a move that some say has pushed adult film studios into the camp of HD-DVD camp led by Toshiba Corp. (6502.T)

So, for those of you still on the fence, start looking for HD-DVD players.  Blue-Ray will end up being an oddity in entertainment, only found on the Playstation 3. 

I happened to be listening to Sean Hannity in the car this week (not a regular occurrence, as I typically listen to Cd’s, when not on the cell phone), and Hannity asked the burning question of our time (concerning the Democrat Party/Liberals and the War):

When are they going to GET it?

I have been mulling this over since, and the only conclusion I can come to is:

Never.

Now, I am not sure who, exactly, Hannity was talking about, but when I say this, I am specifically referring to the Anti-War/solid socialist left wing. In the tradition of the Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, and the Copperheads during the Civil War (more appropriately. the War of Northern Aggression), the Anti-War left has consistently been anti-capitalist, pro-socialist, and against the very idea that America should be more than one nation among a world of equals; that our system is no better than - but certainly much worse than - other systems.

The modern Anti-War left movement earned it’s spurs in the protests against the Viet Nam war. They were not against the conflict itself - just against America supporting the more capitalist South, over the Socialist North. Russian support for North Viet Nam was never an issue for these folks. And just as was predicted, when the Left finally came to power in America, in the wake of Watergate, they cut off aid and support for the South Viet Namese, and the dominoes began to fall. Laos and Cambodia joined Viet Nam as socialist paradises, where even having a reputation as an intellectual or teacher was a very real death warrant. More than 2,000,000 people died, so the left could feel good that they had stopped American interference in the conflict, and allowed the true expression of the people to be manifest in their adoption of socialism (at the point of a gun; After all, it was Chairman Mao - that socialist icon - who said that power flows from the barrell of a gun)…

In the 1980s these same activists morphed into the anti-nuke movement, whose railed and cried that America must appease the Soviet Union. That it was not our place to oppose Socialist movements. These same people actively supported Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, and any other bloody handed dictator they could find, if they only met the singular criteria of opposing American interests… Leftist politicians even made pilgrimages to visit these tyrants, regardless of the fact that the constitution does not give them any power to conduct foreign policy.  The objects of their affection were more than happy to put up these uselful idiots as proof that the American people supported them, and it was only the evil and monstrous American Government that opposed their plans to bless all people with the benefits of a socialist state.

In the 1990s, with their fellow travellers in control of the executive branch, most of these folks drifted over to Environmentalism, to fill the void in their lives left when they didn’t have a Conservative executive to oppose, and as most people finally came to the realization that Socialism was not a rational (or safe) basis for government -except in Europe, where the gene pool became so shallow after two horrendous wars within two generations, that it is amazing they can still master the complexities of shoelaces and chewing gum. The left was so neutered politically, that they could not even oppose the use of military forces in the former Yugoslavian states.  After all, America had no interests in the fight, and Europe was in charge of the war, not some evil American leader.

Then came the answer to their prayers for lives with more purpose:  With the new century came a new conflict, and a conservative administration that did not simply absorbs the hits, and set about apologizing to our enemies for making them hate us so much that they had to sacrifice the lives of their sons to show us the error of our ways.

Now the Left again had a windmill to tilt against - in fact, the had two, becuase in the years in the political wilderness, they had discovered a new green veneer for Socialism, and a cause to push it down the peoples throat - Man Made Global Warming - but most importantly they again had a war to oppose - a war about overturning a tyrant to deliver a message, and keep him from using weapons of mass destruction.  This was the very thing they had opposed a generation earlier: America using her power to impose her will on other nations.   And again we have the policiticans from the frings - now in power again after being in the wilderness - conducting their own foreign policy, to the benfit of our enemeies; and doing to their best to maim and destroy our warfighting capability, while declaring their support for the troops.

To put it simply, in the view of this fringe (which I estimated at about 20% of the left in this country), America has no RIGHT to be superior to any other nation, or to impose our will on other, regardless of the cause.  Only the UN, or EU are pure enough in spirit (now that the USSR is gone, and China has gotten the Greed bug), to lead the world, and America must bow to their will.  While they won’t use the word anymore, the still espouse Socialism, with new guises:  Environmentalism, Universal Health Care, Open Borders, etc… Yje basic tenant of their faith remains that the American system is inferior to all others.  The solid backbone of their position is Moral Equivelancy - that all systems are equal (except ours, which is worse than all others).

Why they have this world view I cannot say.  Perhaps for some it is environmental; certainly some people come to recognize the follies of their youth in time.  For others it may be an inability to see and reason without a constant rush of emotion.  For some, it could even be some form of mental illness.

Whatever the underlying cause, the effect is sure and reliable:  Opposition to American interests, and American power.  A desire to have America be just another nation among equals, and certainly no better.  The misguided notion that equality of outcome is superior to equality of opportunity.  The innate fealing of inadequacy that leads them to desire the government to tell them how to live their lives, when to sleep, what to eat, what not to smoke, and, when possible, to use the government to inflict their views an opinions on their fellow citizens “for their own good”, or in the name of “the children”.  The need to be absolved of responsibility for their actions, but giving the government the power to leads their lives for them.. Becuase when we take action in our own interests, we are taking responsibility for the outcome.  And the last thing in their lives the Left wants, is to be held responsible…

George Orwell was a Democratic Socialist (moderate Left, by English standards).  The man had a gift for language and thought.  When you read the following, substitute “anti-war” for Pacifist:

Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security. Mr Savage remarks that ‘according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be “objectively pro-British”.’ But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories. The Germans even run a spurious ‘freedom’ station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U. They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with. In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.

A couple of other Orwell quotes, along the same line:

England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God save the King than of stealing from a poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometime squashilypacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British.

The fallacy is to believe that under a dictatorial government you can be free inside. Quite a number of people console themselves with this thought, now that totalitarianism in one form or another is visibly on the up-grade in every part of the world. Out in the street the loudspeakers bellow, the flags flutter from the rooftops, the police with their tommy-guns prowl to and fro, the face of the Leader, four feet wide, glares from every hoarding; but up in the attics the secret enemies of the regime can record their thoughts in perfect freedom — that is the idea, more or less.

We have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don’t take the sword perish by smelly diseases.

Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’.

It is, I think, true to say that the intelligentsia have been more wrong about the progress of the war than the common people, and that they were more swayed by partisan feelings. The average intellectual of the Left believed, for instance, that the war was lost in 1940, that the Germans were bound to overrun Egypt in 1942, that the Japanese would never be driven out of the lands they had conquered, and that the Anglo-American bombing offensive was making no impression on Germany. He could believe these things because his hatred for the British ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed. There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind. I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that American troops had been bought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.

Note that I do NOT label the anti-war crowd as unpatriotic - they are patriots, by their own lights.  They believe that America is not the country that it should be.  Nor are all of them anti-american; though they are opposed to American interests.  But they do have an almost child like grasp of the human nature, and a complete unwillingness to realize that there are power hungry and aggressive people born into this world every day (well, except right wing politicians in America and Britian - they are all to willing to believe it in those cases).  Some of these will rise to power in criminal organization, or governments, or shadowy groups that use religion as their means to achieve power and forse their will upon others.  And someone has to be there to stop them.

The Europeans aren’t going to do it.  The Russians are just as bad as the ones who need stopping.  The Chinese forment what trouble the can to keep America occupied, while they move on their own agenda.  Like it or not, America is the bulwark - the soldier on the wall, keeping the barbarians from extinguishing civilization (and not just Western civilization - what nation ever on this earth was as open and welcoming to other races, creed, and thoughts as America?).