I dunno, maybe I'm just being picky.  It's not like the destruction of the American family, a redefinition of marriage, and the spread of sexual promiscuity will have any kind of lasting effect on our nation.  I'm just kinda old fashioned.

Rock music is popular only because most people, the young in particular, are indiscriminate and undemanding.  How many people in the pop music industry who ostensibly make their living as singers have never taken a voice lesson in their lives?  It's rather like hiring a carpenter who doesn't know how to use a hammer.  Most rock bands just make noise.  Harrumph.      

I can recall an Olympic boxing match during the Howard Cosell years.  It looked like two bantamweights, one tall, rangy Russian vs. a shorter but more powerfully built American.  The Russian had the American on points going into the third round when the American stepped up, got inside the Russian's gloves, and closed.  I can still remember Cosell screaming his head off, "this kid likes to brawl, this kid likes to brawl!"  The American fighter staggered his opponent and then knocked him down.  The ref called the fight.

We need to learn how to brawl. 

I simply cannot trust a leftist anymore on any issue.  Their activists tend to be dishonest, unscrupulous and unwilling to engage in honest debate.  They are the ends justify the means crowd.  I will accept nothing from their side anymore except abject humiliation and surrender.  Defeat them!

Ideally, I would let gay scouts into the organization for the purpose of learning virtue.  The problem I have is that equality for gay scouts is an open door for gay activists who don't want "equality," but rather an opportunity to push an agenda.  Once again the underhanded tactics of the left are revealed.  They appeal to our virtue, in this case our belief in equality, for the purpose of corrupting Judeo-Christian morality.  This entire issue is a Trojan horse (no pun intended).  Conservatives lose every time we make a concession.  The left wins through incremental subversion.  We have been snookered again.          

RE:  The Last Emperor

If you regard Byzantium as the continuation of the Roman Empire in the east, then the key date is the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in A.D. 1453.  Just as the Western Roman Empire began and ended with a Romulus on the throne, the Eastern Roman Empire was founded by Constantine I and ended when Constantine XI was killed defending the city during the final siege.

Other comparisons abound.  By A.D. 476 the Western Roman Empire had been completely overrun by Germanic tribes.  The fall of Constantinople was also largely symbolic insofar as the Turks had already crossed into Europe and conquered the greater part of the Balkans.  So depleted was the Byzantine Empire at the end that the walls of Constantinople were defended almost entirely by volunteers from the newly emerging Italian city-states, mostly Genoese and Venetians.

Curiously, the Byzantines had anticipated their final demise for many years.  The Byzantine cultural heritage (art, philosophy, and literature) had already been transferred willy-nilly back to Italy where a renewed interest in classical studies played a major role in sparking the Italian Renaissance.  Rome had successfully migrated.  Twice!  

The Papuans are also known for their ritualistic warfare.  Following WWII some of them changed their battle formations to resemble planes in flight.  Those who came to know the Australians imitated marching columns of infantry.  Talk about cultural pollution! 

Right.  In addition to his mendacity and ignorance he's also lazy. 

The difference between Goebbels and Obama is that the late Nazi knew he was lying whereas Obama believes his own lies.  And more to the point he expects us to believe them too.  It's all a part of his narcissistic complex.     

Obama is delusional.  This is the same man who counted himself among the greatest American presidents.  His lack of self-awareness is only exceeded by his abundance of self-regard.  He believes that his personality is enough to change the millennia old attitudes of the Islamic world.  The man is a walking bundle of pathologies!  Egad!        

Holder doesn't understand the rule of law as you and I do.  His viewpoint is similar to the Soviet attitude where the purpose of the law was to serve the interests of the Communist Party.  I don't think Holder is historically informed enough to see the similarity.  I think for him it's just gut instinct.  The AG is an unsavory combination of ignorance and mendacity with all the subtlety of a hand grenade.  We'll see if he can summon up some dignity on his way out, but I wouldn't bet on it.  Ditto for his boss when the time comes. 

The reason "race" is so much a part of the American national discourse is that the idea is politically useful.  The various factions in our ruling oligarchy (admit it!) make a living by keeping the different demographic groups divided for purposes of control.  "Race" is only skin deep, but it does have the advantage of being immediately recognizable.  Not only that, some individuals have the option to be whatever race they choose as the current resident in the White House well knows.  Do you suppose Mr. Obama's fortunes might have been different if he had married a white woman or declared himself bi-racial?  Not much use in that!  The entire idea of race is such a fraud, and I'm quite frankly sick of it.

The example of India actually illustrates how diverse populations can be unified based on external factors.  Great Britain gave to India three gifts that have kept the country unified for  some sixty-five years.  The first is a national language:  English.  "Uneducated" is a term used in India to describe people who are unable to read and speak English.  The second gift was democracy which the Indians have maintained without a break since independence.  The third gift was a national railroad system which is far and away the single greatest factor to creating a unified economy.

Once again, when we look at India, we find the concept of race to be completely contrived.  How do we justify lumping Koreans and Indians into a single racial category known as Asian?  Ridiculous!  The HGP has determined that India is one of the most racially diverse nations on the planet featuring characteristics from all of the regions surrounding India:  black, white, and yellow.    

A number of points:

"Race" isn't what people think it is.  The science behind the Human Genome Project will eventually overthrow the entire racial paradigm.  Most people alive today are a product of racial blending, and that includes Europeans despite the surface similarities.  So called African-Americans are in fact a hybrid of black and white as dissimilar to native Africans as Mexicans are to native Spaniards.  Once the full complexity of our genetic heritage becomes general knowledge the old racial categories will be declared obsolete.  Science will eventually have the final say on matters of race.

What Dr. Sowell calls race should properly be called ethnicity.  If you examine African-American communities across the nation, you will quickly discover a multitude of ethnicities.  I would suggest that the culture of Prince George's County, Maryland (black entrepreneurial) is as different from the culture of South Chicago (black gangland) as South Chicago is different from the old slave belt (rural agrarian).  The good doctor does, however, recognize something that liberals will never understand:  the problem is not primarily economic, but rather a matter of moral poverty. 

EPA - Every state has an equivalent.  A federal agency is an exercise in redundancy.  Off shore drilling can be placed under the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard.

Interior - Sell off all federal lands or return the land (except our national parks) in block grants back to the states.

Energy - Once again every state has an equivalent.

Agriculture - What does it tell you when there are more bureaucrats in the department than farmers in the field?

HUD & HEW - More duplicate nonsense.

We really only need four departments total:  State, Defense, Treasury and Justice.   

I can recall a comment by Bill Clinton regarding Obama during the primary:  "He has the instincts of a thug." 

Here's the problem for Obama.  He's ill-advised if he thinks he can transplant the Chicago way to D.C.  Washington has too many independent power bases.  That's the nature of divided government.  I doubt that Lois Lerner is willing to go down like Frankie Five Angels.  Mobs get broken up all the time, and it's usually for the same reason.  Someone decides to play ball for the other side usually as part of a plea deal.  All it takes is one person.  Eventually self-preservation is going to trump ideological loyalty.