Content by R.E. Finch
Posted at 7:22pm on Feb. 4, 2008 America: An Idea or a Heritage?
By R.E. Finch
RedStater absentee and I are having a bit of a row over immigration policy. It became more heated over ideas related to heritage and concepts surrounding who we are. Now absentee has dedicated a thread to his positions.
Paul Cella has provided a contrasting point of view.
It's probably a good idea for me to clarify my positions at this time.
This all started because I have consistently of late expressed my opinion that certain ideas espoused by some elements of this national political campaign represent a bona fide, vital threat to my generation's ability to hand down a set of heritable goods to the next generation as valuable and strong as the one my parents provided to me.
In short, they're mucking it all up for my kid.
Posted in Culture — Comments (30) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 4:30pm on Jan. 21, 2008 Whence Conservatism Post Fred?
By R.E. Finch
I'll preface this: For the record, if Fred drops out I'm going to support Mitt Romney.
But I'm not pleased at all with our choices. At best, we have a verging-on-mediocre selection if judged from a traditionally conservative perspective. I believe that all except Thompson, Romney and Paul would, if elected, yank the yoke of the party significantly toward port in dangerous, perhaps disastrous ways.
Paul presents a whole separate set of challenges that I won't discuss here.
Let it suffice to say that, as a conservative, I'm more disturbed by the state of the GOP than in any time since I started got involved in a partisan way in 1984.
Posted in Elections — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 12:31pm on Jan. 7, 2008 Candidates I'd Line Up to Splash in a Carnival Dunk Tank
By R.E. Finch
There's an American political colloquialism we often use to discuss which candidate we feel is most likely to get "the undecided vote."
It's a question: Which candidate would you most like to sit down and have a beer with?
I think that for this to really work as a way to divine an eventual winner is that it needs to be accompanied by an opposite corollary.
This question would be something like: Which candidate would you most like to splash in a carnival dunk tank?
Posted in 2008 — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 1:36pm on Jul. 4, 2007 America's Birthday vs. The Nothingness of Progressivism
By R.E. Finch
Happy Birthday America!
I'll be the first to admit that I have less than zero tolerance for those who champion causes under the banner of "progressivism." I've never been able to get beyond the absurdity inherent in people who insist we would all be better off if Americans had no reverence for our past; no mindfulness of our place in life's great continuum; and, no deep and broad concern for the what sort of nation we pass on to generations that will follow us. As I observe it, there is a vast shallowness of soul possessed by "progressives." They scoff at all historical prescriptions pointing to the danger in living for and craving only the instant, radical change that comes with exposure to every new innovative trinket, bauble and glittery design: "Hey! Look what I figured out how to do! Let's all go do it!"
Who cares if the bungee cord is 10 feet longer than the distance to the ground from the bridge. It is the "progressives" who would have us jump simply because someone invented the cord!
Posted in History — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:32am on Jun. 17, 2007 For Both My Parents This Fathers Day
By R.E. Finch
Re-Posted from my Blog.
Pictures, mental images and the becoming of “self”
I’ll start at the beginning.
The banner image I chose and cropped for my site is a portion of my 1964 kindergarten class picture [below]. In the banner, I’m the shrimp at the far left. This picture is very important to me, and I’ll get to that in a bit. You might notice that I’m the shortest child in the picture; the kindergarten I attended was a two-year program. I was only four years old when this picture was taken, but so were half of the other kids.
Throughout all my years in school, until my senior year in high school growth-spurt, I was always the shortest kid in the class, and usually by several inches. Needless to say, I had to find creative ways to make up for my physical stature, lest I be picked on. I’m sure I’ll get around to describing some incidents regarding my defense of shortness in future posts.
But this post isn’t really about this picture.
This post is about my parents, particularly my Dad. It is about what they gave of themselves to me.
Posted in Miscellanea — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 2:54pm on Jun. 13, 2007 That's not an "amnesty"...it's "serial amnesty"
By R.E. Finch
No matter how the proponents of the Senate Bill try to spin it, no matter what else they want to call it, and no matter how many ways they deviously try to tell you any differently, what they propose is far more onerous than a simple "amnesty." Those who support it, in fact, want to provide illegal aliens eligible for the the Z-Visa with complete absolution for all other crimes they likely committed in order to perpetuate their continued illegal presence. Compare the "penalty" imposed upon the illegal alien who has committed document fraud, identity fraud, identity theft and tax evasion with the penalties and consequences that would befall you, dear mere-citizen, if you were you to have done the same things. It's not just a single amnesty for many of these people, its serial amnesty! I'm willing to wager that $5,000 wouldn't even get you through the first couple weeks of legal fees if you had done what they have! Heck, you don't have to be Paris Hilton for getting caught driving without a license to cost you more than $5,000 in fines, legal fees and lost wages.
Posted in Immigration — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 1:44pm on May 28, 2007 Immigration Bill: What About Our Posterity
By R.E. Finch
I prefer treading softly when considering immigration legislation out of concern for future generations of Americans. Economic considerations, particularly those that only affect the short term, must take a back seat when we’re talking about the sort of America we pass along to our children. There is no other area of policy with the potential to radically alter the future character of any nation than how it decides who gets to come, who gets to stay and who gets to share in the franchise. So I start with the most salient question I can ask regarding what I see in the bill: Does this legislation contain within it the potential to result in radical change that might bring damage upon the the current citizens (to whom our legislators are supposed to answer) and, more importantly, might it damage the cultural goods passed on to their children and descendants?
Posted in Immigration — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 4:49pm on May 21, 2007 Immigration: Why this bill must die
By R.E. Finch
[Prior annotation removed. All is harmonious.]
I've been reading a lot about how some people who oppose it would like to change this "unfinished" immigration bill, what concessions they might be willing to make in order to get something more palatable enacted and how far they are willing to go to reach a "comprehensive" compromise. The fatal flaw with this rationale is that Congress can later go back and change anything it wants regarding this legislation, but the granting of amnesty can never be rescinded.
Posted in Archived — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 2:31am on May 17, 2007 There's Ron Paul, Let's Get a Rope!
By R.E. Finch
I've been sort of amused by all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about Ron Paul's GOP debate comments about American interventionism. I don't support the man for president; I know a lot of think-tank folks who come across like he does and I don't want any of them to be president. But I don't want him railroaded by straw man arguments either. And that's what a lot of Republicans are doing to him today.
Rep. Paul doesn't do too much to inspire, but what he does do is consistently focus people's attention, even if it is only briefly, on the real desires, dreams, admonitions and advice that our Founding Fathers and Founding Generation had for us. Since so few know much about that stuff at all these days, it's refreshing to hear a well-informed, factually straight wonk talk about the Conservative side of America's roots.
I was just going to let this slide, but then I read the attack piece on Rep. Paul by Ken Taylor at Hinzsight. He waded in and insulted Rep. Paul right after the debate and came across as the poster boy for the argument against letting Bloggers or "citizen journalists" have keys to the kingdom traditionally held by "The Press." I deeply want to see Bloggers create a new mainstream: Sadly the scene must have in person looked more pathetic than the typical rookie mainstream media reporter's feeble attempt at verbally lynching someone he failed to comprehend. It didn't help the cause of replacing the MSM at all.
Now, I'd like to take walk through the transcripts to see exactly what was said and what allowed the construction of the straw man so many have bought into as fact around here today:
Posted in 2008 — Comments (102) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 5:21pm on Apr. 15, 2007 Avast ye damned berg!
By R.E. Finch
The final scene from the Best Documentary Academy Award winner, Avast Ye Damned Berg! (circa 2015)
[Narrator- Morgan Freeman]
“AlGore slips into a dark Nashville alley in a desperate search for a fix. He’s run out of Carbon Credits and is looking to the Black Market to feed his addiction. It’s truly sad to see how far the man has tumbled, turning to back alley deals with illicit carbon-offset commodity traders even though the whole industry was debunked in 2008. Gore just hasn’t been the same since his airboat struck an iceberg while on a Global Warming tour of the Everglades in the summer of 2009. One day earlier, the berg had been part of an ice floe that had been broken free from Lake Okeechobee for use as a water supply for South Florida.