Brown Ivy

With all this talk about voter-fraud in past elections here at Brown, one truth still prevails. Voter fraud always benefits democrats. Shut up about Bush in 2000 and 2004. Voters, on the whole, were not disenfranchised by the republicans. There was no effort to make sure blacks couldn’t vote or make it hard for idiots to figure out how to punch a hole in a piece of paper. If you want real cases of voter fraud, it benefited JFK (possibly even being the driving force behind his victory), it happened in the Washington Gubernatorial race just a few years ago, and now it’s happening in Minnesota in the Al Franken/Norm Coleman race. Coleman won the race by a mere 725 votes. The race is close enough to trigger an automatic audit (which isn’t quite the same thing as a recount).

After votes had been 100% counted, 246 votes (from ballots attached to a strange date discrepancy that afflicted none of the other ballots) were suddenly found for Franken. 0 were found for Coleman. Two days after the election, 32 ballots were suddenly found after hours in Minneapolis. No credible explanation for their absence in the original count was provided. In Mount Iron Minnesota, 100 votes materialized when officials claimed that the person taking their vote count over the phone had misheard how many votes had been quoted. Interestingly, the same person misheard the results for Barack Obama as well. And so, despite the fact that the audit hasn’t even begun, Coleman’s lead has shrunk to a mere 221 votes. While nearly 100% statistically improbable, almost every single error has benefited Al Franken or hurt Norm Coleman. Franken has gained 435 votes and Coleman has lost 69. Moreover, if all this weren’t enough to raise your suspicions, according to FOXNews “the Senate gains for Franken were 2.5 times the gain for Obama in the presidential race count, 2.9 times the total gain that Democrats got across all Minnesota congressional races, and 5 times the net loss that Democrats suffered for all state House races.”

Here’s the deal, my 2 brothers and I, voted for Coleman. At this point, our votes constitute more than 1% of Coleman’s entire lead. My promise is this, if Coleman wins by 3 votes or less, I’m holding a “My Vote Actually Mattered” party. All of you can come. There will be a Franken cutout which we can parade around and bash into things for fun.

The day after Obama won, as I was walking around campus, I couldn’t help but notice the beaming faces of my peers. Everyone here is so freakin’ excited that Obama won. Well, congratulations! I hope that the next four years are delightful. But let’s be honest. What do you think will be so different? After four years of listening to liberals whine about Bush impinging on our civil liberties, I wonder what you think will be better about Obama. Certainly, you haven’t convinced yourself that Obama will rescind the Patriot Act’s measures. Surely you don’t think that Obama will stop the phone tapping procedure that had liberals up in arms when it was reported that the Bush administration was engaging in the allegedly illegal spy-tactics. I refuse to believe that Brown students have actually convinced themselves that Obama will pull out of Iraq the instant he gets into office.

Let’s be honest, for the last 8 years, liberals have been whiny little babies just because they don’t like Bush? I find it hilarious that the mere portention of Obama’s taking the oath had Brown’s student population walking on clouds. While I doubt that Obama will change any of the so-called abhorrent Bush policies, I have little doubt that the complaints about said policies will instantly disappear. So congratulations Brounonians. You’ve proven how vapid your criticism of Bush and other conservatives have been.

Below are two very good articles on the Proposition 8 constitutional amendment in California, which passed 52-48, and the other two state constitutional amendments which passed, in Arizona (56-44) and Florida (62-38).

Jonah Goldberg’s article is smart to note that, had only ‘whites’ voted, the amendment would have failed.  ‘Blacks’ and ‘Hispanics’ voted overwhelmingly to pass the amendment, with ‘blacks’ favouring it more than 2 to 1.

Dr Jennifer Morse’s article is very informative, which is to be expected, given that she played a key role in the ‘Yes on 8′ campaign.  However, it is particularly annoying to me, as a mainline Protestant (i.e., of the Presbyterian-Episcopal kind of Christianity), to see even conservatives mucking up the Christian denominations.  NOTE:  Christians are not divided into just Roman Catholics and Evangelicals; indeed, the ancestors of (orthodox) mainline Protestants are the very ones who gave traction to the Reformation, and who allowed it to flourish as the unofficial religion of the United States of America.  Evangelicalism should be regarded by any serious observer of the historical record as a perversion of Protestantism.

Regardless, we all seem to agree on the importance of maintaining traditional marriage, as it has been understood for millenia in law, religion, and family life.  What a splendid day Tuesday was for those who oppose intrusive progressivism!

SBQ

I had to take a picture of McCain ahead. As the first results came in, McCain is shown to be ahead. But let’s be honest, it won’t last.

On Wednesday, from 6-7.30pm, The Japanese Cultural Association will present a lecture and Q&A session with Glenn Kumekawa ’56, Professor Emeritus at the University of Rhode Island.  The event will take place in Salomon 001, and will address ‘The WWII Japanese American Internment Experience’.

I highly recommend that the readers of the blog attend this event, as it is certain to be informative and intellectually invigorating.

I feel that the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII is especially important for students, and the general public, to encounter and understand.  Many people are quick to ascribe blame to America for her supposed guilt in this matter, when in reality the tragedy was the direct consequence of an executive order (9066) issued by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (or, FDR the Tyrant), on February 19, 1942.

It should be noted that FDR the Tyrant, a Democrat, is still praised by modern Democrats because of his refusal to apply any principled limits on the use of the power of the State.  Whatever FDR thought was good, he had no qualms about using the State — often, when the rubber met the road, in the form of the barrel of a gun — to achieve.

And with the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee, Senator Joseph Biden, openly praising FDR the Tyrant’s actions during the Great Depression and his overall political philosophy, all lovers of liberty should be visibly worried.  What would a President Obama do, or a Vice President Biden advocate, when finally able to exercise the power emanating from the office of the President?

My thoughts here have been quick and mostly observational, but it truly is worth wondering, ‘Would Japanese-Americans have been put into internment campus if a limited-government, conservative Republican were President, instead of FDR?’  Remember, the conservative standard-bearer of the day, Senator Robert Taft, opposed both the Nuremberg Trials (labeling them ‘victor’s justice’) and America’s involvement in the warmongering NATO.  Do you honestly think that he would have ordered the forceful removal of residents and/or citizens from their homes, and then dumped them into quasi-concentration camps?

No!

Eric Foner writes in The Story of American Freedom:  ‘One searches the wartime record in vain for public protests among non-Japanese.  In Congress, only Senator Robert Taft spoke out against the greatest violation of civil liberties since the end of slavery.  Groups publicly committed to fighting discrimination, from the Communist Party to the NAACP and the American Jewish Committee, either defended the internment or remained silent’. (P. 241)

Therefore, vote wisely today.  You just may get the forceful, violent government that Obama and Biden both advocate.

SBQ

After Taco Bell gave away free Taco’s the other day to commemorate a stolen base during the world series, other companies have decided to follow in suit and give you free food for voting. And, while the dems try to steal this election with massive amounts of voter fraud (which has to be expected of the subvert the election process, win-at-all-cost socialist leaning members of the democratic party) if you are a republican, wear your “I Voted” sticker to one (or all) of the following restaurants where you can drown away your sorrows.
Ben and Jerry’s ice cream

Starbucks Coffee

Krispy Kream(ain’t got no Krispy Kream’s ’round here)

The New Spectator has been posted on the website. We had some trouble with the printing, so the hard copy is a little bit late. But it will be distributed in the next couple of days. Happy reading!