Appeasement Never Satisfies

A Facebook comment posted by Harold Thompson 9/25/2010. This cat has his head screwed on straight.

A few weeks ago I posted a short history of how Europe tried to deal with Hitler early on. The decision was made to appease Hitler. If he was accommodated, then he would be happy and all would be well.

The appeasement reached its apex when ...Czechoslovakia was forced to cede to Germany a large part of its territory, known as the Sudetenland, in Oct 1938. In March of 1939 Hitler invaded and occupied the remainder of the country anyway. The beginnings of WW II were in place.

Appeasement and accommodation never satisfies an aggressor. The more weakness you exhibit, the more appeasement they demand.

Same situation as which a school yard bully. The more you give in to a bully, the more he demands. Either you totally surrender or you stand and fight.

Eventually Islam will force us to fight or surrender. Then and only then will most Americans realize trying to pacify Muslims is a wasted effort and is futile.

Islam gives infidels (that is us) 3 choices: 1. convert; 2. submit; or 3. die by the sword.

The sooner we understand this, the sooner we will deal with Islam.

Facebook isn't only about what my cat did today.

A Man Never Looks...

New York Post: Liberal media goes on attack against GOP's Boehner. Keeping it classy.

Catching Boehner with a mistress is the only way to destroy him politically before the election.

A man never looks behind the bedroom door unless he has hidden there himself.
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More: Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Democrats' strategy: Start slinging.

Teresa Lewis Executed in Virginia

Small Anti-Death Penalty Protest

The death penalty is alive and well in Virginia. It seems Teresa Lewis conspired with a couple of other low-life types to have her husband and step-son murdered in the hope of collecting some insurance money. Hiring someone to commit murder is seen as more nefarious than doing the deed yourself, for reasons that elude me. In Teresa's case, she reportedly used sex to recruit at least one of the actual killers. To look at her makes me wonder how the jury bought that theory, she isn't what I would call a siren. At any event, Lewis was convicted and sentenced to die by lethal injection. Her co-conspirators, the ones that she met in a Walmart and enticed into shotgunning her victims, 'rolled over' on Teresa and got life sentences.

To read most of the news coverage one might get the impression that the execution took place despite a huge public outcry against the enormity of the "machinery of death in Virginia" snuffing out "the beautiful, childlike and loving human spirit of Teresa Lewis". In fact, only about a dozen protesters showed up at the prison, outnumbered by pro death penalty demonstrators and the press.

I think the death penalty serves a purpose. Even though I'm generally an anti-statist, the reality of the situation is that we don't have any other sensible way to get rid of those among us that commit truly heinous crimes. Sure, some folks will whine that executions cost society more than life sentences. If that is true it is only because the anti death penalty busybodies that have put so many roadblocks in the way of the legal process. And there is always a chance that life sentences might be commuted or that the perp might escape. The death penalty is final.

I also believe the death penalty serves as a deterrent, but you never hear of those murders that never happen, so deterrence can't really be proved. Common sense tells us that some would-be murderers consider the possibility of paying the ultimate price and make other plans.

It would be nice to think that common sense is making a comeback in America.

Onward

Wild Horses in Our New Mexico Orchard

The old feeder has come through a rough winter. I didn't feel well enough to run the Plains Feeder, partly because of cancer and partly due to the chemotherapy and radiation treatments. These times were chronicled on Facebook. If you are curious, just find P. T. Gustan's Facebook account, ask to be my 'friend' and read about the struggle. I don't want to let my circumstances impinge too much upon this old blog any more.

Even though I have moved to New Mexico, I remain a Plainsman at heart. I intend for the Plains Feeder to continue following the Midwest scene at a distance. I'll try to add something of interest to New Mexicans as well as to continue covering national and international news that I consider Feedworthy. As always, I'll try to include some personal anecdotes, minus the tedious expilcation of my own battle to stay alive.

Onward!

The unhealed injury

Posted September 11th, 2010.
It takes something really important for the old feeder to break from his decision to stop posting here at the Plains Feeder until he has the energy to spare. There will be, no doubt, all the 9/11 memorabilia, photos, videos, remembrances you have a taste for on the intertubes today. I plan to partake sparingly this year.

The day is in danger of solidifying into one of those memorials from which most of the real juice has dried up. Many of us do it for the doing of it, like Memorial Day grave decorating. The 9/11 attacks have never been resolved. Not for me. Osama bin Laden is still free. His people want to build a Mosque de Triomphe on the ruins and remains. The anger and pain are even worse for me now than they were in 2001.

Fellow bloggers, If I don't check in at your 9/11 post today, it is because I can't bear to, not because I don't want to.
ptg
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Reposted:

September 11, 2001: Images I won't forget

Doomed victims above

Smashed WTC jumpers' bodies below

Like the poor victims of the Mohammedan Jihad pictured above, you have a choice to make. Unlike them, one of your options is life.

Life free of the threat of murderous Islamic madness, if you have the guts to choose it. The other choice is the slavery of Muslim dhimmitude or death.

The Spirit of '76

Anyone still have the Spirit of '76?

The Declaration of Independence is the document that explains the Spirit of '76. The concept is nearly incredible from today's perspective: Americans advocating and fomenting the violent overthrow of their own lawful government. These Patriots offered more than protest, petition for redress, even than resistance. They offered war.

Before I sully this day with my own sour thoughts concerning the "Spirit" of today's American citizen, I'll move on to my real point. I think it would be nice if all Americans made it a tradition to read the Declaration of Independence aloud at least once a year. That day might as well be the Fourth of July. Do it by way of testimony if you are a solitary person. As a family or group, do it as a civilized custom and a lesson to the young. Don't do it if you don't want, but wouldn't it be nice if more of us did?

Click for big

Give the old parchment a read:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. ——— We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. ——— He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. ——— He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. ——— He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. ——— He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. ——— He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. ——— He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. ——— He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. ——— He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. ——— He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. ——— He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. ——— He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. ——— He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. ——— He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: —— For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: —— For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: —— For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: —— For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: —— For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: —— For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences —— For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: —— For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: —— For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. ——— He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. ——— He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. ——— He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. ——— He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. ——— He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. ———

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. ——— And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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Be free.

Cease and Desist!

That Other White Meat?

Have you ever gotten a "cease and desist" demand because of something you posted on the internet? I got a laugh out of this one that ThinkGeek got from lawyers representing the National Pork Board (The Other White Meat people) demanding the Geeks stop using a similar sounding slogan for their Canned Unicorn Meat. The Pork Board's stodgy lawyers really egg up their faces; I hope they didn't bill the Pork Board anything over the retainer for this brilliant piece of legal work.

I've only gotten one serious "cease and desist" demand from a real lawyer representing a real company with a real beef. I manufactured and marketed adult ant farms on the internets. As it turns out Uncle Milton, who makes Uncle Milton's plastic toy Ant Farms owns the words "Ant Farm".

Uncle Miltie's lawyer agreed with me that I could go on using the words Ant Farm as long as I noted that Miltie was the owner. Heck, I wasn't competing with Milton's cheesy plastic toys. I made the Genuine Bauman Formicarium, a furniture quality ant habitat for the adult enthusiast.
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Such Tripe!
The Pork Board's law firm web site actually features this statement:

Sustainability is a priority for our firm. We also believe environmental stewardship and effective client service are fundamentally connected. When Faegre & Benson participated in a sustainability pledge campaign in April, more than 500 employees promised to add three environmentally friendly actions to their work habits. The result? More Together.

500 more together employees took the pledge. Save us from being PC.

From Texas: Don't Aid the Castro Regime

Castro Monument

Saw this first at Babalu blog, my favorite anti-communist source, who got it via Capitol Hill Cubans. Its a good, short read by U.S. Representative Mike Conaway of Texas, a Member of the House Committee on Agriculture, in the San Angelo Standard-Times:

After reading the Standard-Times' recent editorial regarding legislative efforts to lift the travel ban to Cuba, I felt the need to respond. This is an issue that my colleagues and I on the Agriculture Committee continue to examine and in the newspaper's analysis of the issue, I believe some pertinent concerns were overlooked.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence asserts with no equivocation that liberty is an inalienable right, granted to us by our Creator. The government of Cuba unequivocally disagrees with us on this point.

Fidel and Raul Castro have erected, as their own sister once said, "an enormous prison surrounded by water." According to the U.S. State Department, Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism, one of only four in the world.

The Cuban government, along with Syria, Iran and Sudan, has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism and engaged in the trade of prohibited materials with other state sponsors. It has allied itself with Hugo Chavez, FARC rebels in Colombia and Basque separatists in northern Spain, and it continues to harbor U.S. fugitives.

Further, the government of Cuba consistently ranks as one of the most repressive, draconian and abusive regimes in the world.

Our relations with Cuba are not merely an economic question, but a moral question as well.

I support our current agricultural export policy with Cuba because I believe that supplying this nation with foodstuffs lessens suffering among the citizens and drains the Castro regime of funds to spend on more belligerent uses. The humanitarian goal of feeding innocent people and the strategic goal of exhausting the funds of a totalitarian government outweigh the moral hazard of trading with a nation as corrupt as Cuba.

Our agricultural producers should rightly be proud of the role they play and the profits they earn in helping to protect the Cuban people.

However, the question of lifting the travel ban presents a different set of moral concerns. Tourists traveling to Cuba to spend their money will enrich the Castro regime, largely without ever seeing the desperate poverty and crushing oppression that the average Cuban faces. The tourism industry in Cuba is, in fact, run by their military and they will, without question, enact and enforce laws restricting the interaction of the Cuban poor with Americans on travel.

The money American tourists would trade for sandy beaches and quaint, old hotels will be funneled into the state-run business and the Cuban government's coffers, where it can be used for malicious activity.

It is possible that this money could be used to buy food from Texans or Georgians, but the Cuban government has a proven track-record of violent political repression, financing Marxist revolutionary movements in Latin America and arming terrorist organizations.

In your editorial, you cited a letter written by 74 members of Castro's opposition who support lifting the travel ban. It is unfortunate that you were not able to also consider a response letter sent to the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Collin Peterson, by several hundred former prisoners of Fidel Castro.

In their letter, they explained to Chairman Peterson: "We are former Cuban political prisoners, who have spent a combined 3,551 years in Castro's gulag. We are living testimony of the unspeakable tortures, cruelty and deprivations of the military dictatorship of the Castro brothers. (E)very dollar (this) legislation seeks to place in the coffers of the Castro regime will only be used to further repress the Cuban people."

The letter is a powerful statement about the true nature of the Cuban government and the lengths to which military dictatorships will go to maintain their grip on power.

As a Christian, I have a deeply held conviction that the oppression of the Cuban people by the brutal Castro regime is morally reprehensible. While I am a strong supporter of existing and improved agricultural export relations with Cuba, lifting the travel ban and opening Cuba to American tourism is an issue separate from those exports. Lifting the ban would strengthen the Castro regime and enrich a state-sponsor of terrorism.

In my travels and meetings in Congress, I have met with many Cuban refugees. I have heard the depths of their suffering and I look forward to the day when all Cubans live in a nation free from fear, repression and retribution.

However, unilaterally lifting the travel ban, with no commitment from the Cuban government to improve its record on human rights, political freedom and economic openness, will not meet this goal.

Our nation should work toward free elections in Cuba with every tool and resource at our disposal. When that day finally does come, Americans and Cubans alike will enjoy the freedom to travel between our countries; but most importantly, Cubans will finally get to enjoy true liberty, a God-given human right.

Without true liberty all the rum drinks taken in quaint old hotels while being served by quaintly oppressed peasants should taste bitter in the mouths of the thoughtless hypocrites and stooges who think they will be helping. For the ones who know the real score and still support a US policy that will give aid and comfort to our mortal enemies, the Communists: may Castro's rum turn to poison in their mouths.