The Simple Facts

65 years ago, on August 6th, Hiroshima, Japan was bombed — making Japan the only country to ever be attacked with an atomic weapon. And U.S. ambassador to Japan, John Roos, attended the Hiroshima memorial ceremony in Japan. This is the first time any U.S. ambassador has accepted the invitation to the ceremony. Why? State Department Philip Crowely explained, “[T]o express respect for all the victims of World War II.” An editorial in the Nikkei newspaper sees Roos’ attendance as “a far cry from the apology to bombing victims that both cities are hoping for,” but the Obama Administrations decision to send an ambassador, “is a golden opportunity to harness the moving power of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We hope that Obama will visit the bombing sites himself before his tenure is over.”

Gene Tibbets — the son of Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets Jr. who bombed Hiroshima — says that the Obama Administration’s decision is, “an unsaid apology.” While this is likely, saying “all the victims” Crowley raises a specter of moral equivalence, a problem growing worse when talking about right and wrong judgments during WWII.

When the U.S. bombed Hiroshima with the “little boy”, the Japanese didn’t give up. So they were bombed again on August 9th with the “fat man” in Nagasaki, which led to Japan’s unconditional surrender. The bombings killed more than 120,000 people instantly, and approximately 140,000 from radiation exposure. It should be noted that Harry Truman considered an invasion of Japan alternatively to the bombings. His advisors estimated that an invasion would cause 1 million American casualties and at least 2 million Japanese deaths. “In the strange calculus of war,” says Warren Kozak with the Wall Street Journal, “the bombs actually saved Japanese lives.”

Kozak continues, “If the Obama administration wants to ease the friction over this event or even to apologize, then perhaps it is also a good time for the Japanese government to begin to discuss World War II truthfully with its own people.”

Since 1945, Japan’s teachings of WWII has centered almost exclusively around the bombings and our role as the victimizers — with a brief confession given to the Japanese invasions of China, Manchuria, Korea, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Indochina, Burma, New Guinea and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese School children are taught little these days about the 17 million Asians who died in the hands of the Japanese in some of the most brutal ways imaginable. Little is said to them in regard to Japan starting the war in the first place. And when you add the fact that two-thirds of the Japanese public were born after the atomic bombings it’s no wonder Japan is looking for an apology.

When the Japanese fail to teach the failures of past mindsets and ideas, they become a threat. As the old who remember the problems with the past die, it only leaves the young who are oblivious to the problems that were created by those decisions. Failure to teach mistakes of the past is only delaying the progression of their country. Delaying the chance to learn and move on.

The mindset that led to aggravation, brutality and millions of deaths must not continue. All life is sacred, it must be protected. We cannot afford the lives of millions to be thrown away in the name of industrial “resources” or cultural “purification” ever again.

President Obama should take note of a similar mistake President Reagan made in 1985. Reagan placed a wreath over the graves of Nazi Soldiers and SS troops. The reasoning was that Reagan wanted to bolster his ally, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The negative response to Reagan’s decision was not because we did not want or believe the Germans to be strong allies, it was because Reagan was placing the Nazi SS Strom Troopers at a similar level to U.S. soldiers. Even though you could call both SS troopers and U.S. soldiers “victims,” SS troopers were ruthless killers who were on a mission of world domination and U.S. soldiers served for freedom and liberation from that tyranny. U.S. soldiers worked against the evil that sprung from the fountain of the mindset that killed millions of people. U.S. soldiers fought for the sanctity of life and equality.

Kozak concludes:

Young people today may have a hard time understanding that point because of the moral equivalence and political correctness that have taken over our society, our media and especially our universities. It teaches our children that all countries have good and bad elements within them—something so obvious that it’s trite. But this lesson has become so powerful that it is not out of the norm for young people today to believe that, while World War II was certainly horrible, all sides share some blame.

Concerning today’s event in Hiroshima, the State Department said ‘at this particular time, we thought it was the right thing to do.’ It may indeed be the right time for our two countries to share this event. But by tacitly placing all of World War II’s participants in the same category, we undermine the ability of future generations to identify real evil, putting them at great risk.” -Warren Kozak with The Wall Street Journal, August 6th, 2010 (emphasis mine.)

The value of truthfully taught history becomes more and more valuable, as it becomes more and more rare. We must never forget what really happened, less we repeat it.

-Ben

Resources

1. “A Hiroshima Apology?” By Warren Kozak with The Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2010: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703748904575411123599873634.html?

2. “U.S. to Send Envoy to Hiroshima Ceremony” The Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2010: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704657504575411783589560138.html

The likelihood of Elena Kagan’s approval by the Senate is high, not because she’s qualified, but because she knows the right people, talks the right way and has the right mannerisms.

While the people in Washington are often — and correctly — called “the ruling minority,” Angelo M. Codevilla with the American Spectator‘s latest issue encapsulates and identifies the minority in Washington. The ruling class.

To be a part of the ruling class, one does not need wealth, professional positioning, or education. Codevilla explains that most under the ruling class do not make much more than a California farmer, a Texas oil man, or the neighbors with which they do not associate. What sets them apart demographically is that, “their careers and fortunes depend on government.” As for professional positioning, someone like Steve Forbes, Clarance Thomas, or Ronald Reagan never would, and never will, be accepted into the ruling class. Those conservatives don’t speak, do or think the right way.

Education doesn’t serve as any filter for who is accepted. Codevilla explains:

Much less does membership in the ruling class depend on high academic achievement. To see something closer to an academic meritocracy consider France, where elected officials have little power, a vast bureaucracy explicitly controls details from how babies are raised to how to make cheese, and people get into and advance in that bureaucracy strictly by competitive exams. Hence for good or ill, France’s ruling class are bright people — certifiably. Not ours. But didn’t ours go to Harvard and Princeton and Stanford? Didn’t most of them get good grades? Yes. But while getting into the Ecole Nationale d’Administration or the Ecole Polytechnique or the dozens of other entry points to France’s ruling class requires outperforming others in blindly graded exams, and graduating from such places requires passing exams that many fail, getting into America’s “top schools” is less a matter of passing exams than of showing up with acceptable grades and an attractive social profile. American secondary schools are generous with their As. Since the 1970s, it has been virtually impossible to flunk out of American colleges. And it is an open secret that “the best” colleges require the least work and give out the highest grade point averages. No, our ruling class recruits and renews itself not through meritocracy but rather by taking into itself people whose most prominent feature is their commitment to fit in. The most successful neither write books and papers that stand up to criticism nor release their academic records. Thus does our ruling class stunt itself through negative selection. But the more it has dumbed itself down, the more it has defined itself by the presumption of intellectual superiority.“  Angelo M. Codevilla with American Spectator June-August, 2010 issue (emphasis mine.)

The people in control of this country aren’t necessarily successful or smart. But yet they do what they do because they think they know what’s best for our nation. They look at the government as their vehicle, thinking the average American is retrograde, racist and dysfunctional if not properly constrained. Therefore, the ruling class’ goal is power. Power not granted in the Constitution, that’s why it is so often disregarded by them. They consider it an obstacle.

In Congressional Government (1885) Woodrow Wilson made his thoughts clear: the U.S. Constitution restricts the government from meeting our country’s needs by enumerating rights. The rights granted in the Constitution only serve as a block in the ruling class’ road to a “better society.” Thus the ideas of a “living” Constitution were born.

Often the members of the ruling class believe there is no God, and that only the unenlightened citizens believe in God. Codevilla states, “our ruling class prays to itself as ‘saviors of the planet’ and improvers of humanity.”   There is also a logical rational behind this: Christian beliefs protect the rights granted in the Constitution. That life is sacred, all are created equal, God granted us unalienable rights, and there are certain things that a government should not do. God, like the Constitution, is an obstacle to the ruling class.

Taxes, regulation and welfare are some of the biggest ways the ruling class creates a dependence on the government. Once they obtain dependence, they then can control society and make decisions based on what they think is best.

Codevilla says, “Democrats and Republicans, gladden the hearts of some one-third of the electorate — most Democratic voters, plus a few Republicans. This means that Democratic politicians are the ruling class’s prime legitimate representatives and that because Republican politicians are supported by only a fourth of their voters while the rest vote for them reluctantly, most are aspirants for a junior role in the ruling class.”

All of this answers Senator Scott Brown’s question, “Why is it that I’m always the one that has to vote with the Democrats? …Bipartisanship is a two-way street, you know?” Not with the ruling class, Senator Brown. The ruling class “knows what’s best” so therefore bipartisanship means voting with them, on their side.

This also explains President Obama’s apologies for America. Codevilla states, “[E]ven as our ruling class has lectured, cajoled, and sometimes intruded violently to reform foreign countries in its own image, it has apologized to them for America not having matched that image — their private image.”

The ruling class isn’t worried about the truth. They alter common science, media, news, history and textbooks. The ruling class does so to achieve — you guessed it — power. After all, it is in our best interests.

Codevilla goes on to explain what he calls the “Country class.” Meaning, the people who believe in free market, less regulation, lower taxes, limited government, the Constitution, Rights and — in most cases — God. The average American who holds traditional, core values and is concerned with what the government has done, and continues to do.

Retaliation against the ruling class is crucial. If we are to preserve truth, history, education, religion, rights, and our Constitution, the ruling class must be stopped. How do we do that? Codevilla explains:

Yet to defend the country class, to break down the ruling class’s presumptions, it has no choice but to imitate the Democrats, at least in some ways and for a while. Consider: The ruling class denies its opponents’ legitimacy. Seldom does a Democratic official or member of the ruling class speak on public affairs without reiterating the litany of his class’s claim to authority, contrasting it with opponents who are either uninformed, stupid, racist, shills for business, violent, fundamentalist, or all of the above. They do this in the hope that opponents, hearing no other characterizations of themselves and no authoritative voice discrediting the ruling class, will be dispirited. For the country class seriously to contend for self-governance, the political party that represents it will have to discredit not just such patent frauds as ethanol mandates, the pretense that taxes can control “climate change,” and the outrage of banning God from public life. More important, such a serious party would have to attack the ruling class’s fundamental claims to its superior intellect and morality in ways that dispirit the target and hearten one’s own. The Democrats having set the rules of modern politics, opponents who want electoral success are obliged to follow them.” Angelo M. Codevilla with American Spectator July-August, 2010 issue (emphasis mine.)

There is one part of that last quote that I do not agree with: that there is, “no choice but to imitate the Democrats”. The ruling class discredits its opponents by ridiculing the Country class. We must not play their game. When discrediting the ruling class we must do so eloquently and winsomely. Ridicule only reduces the credibility of the one who does the ridiculing. Ronald Reagan is an excellent example of eloquent, winsome, disarmament of his opponents. Rather than forcing his view, he presented it in a way that no one could turn down.

Don’t wait, the ruling class is a determined minority.

-Ben

The new iPhone 4 came out with hype. The latest Motorola Droid X came out with serious competition. iPhone developments seem rather stagnant when compared to competitors.

Besides the fact that you can’t use your iPhone 4 if you hold it normally (see: creative solutions), AT&T is notorious for dropped calls and poor iPhone management in metropolitan areas. Alternatively, the Droid X has gone with Verizon, which has shown to be reliable at handling smarphone traffic.

Both phones have fast 1GHz processors and are close weight and size. But the Droid X has more storage capabilities. The iPhone 4 gives you the option of 16 or 32 GB of memory, while the Droid X has 8 GB internally and comes with a removable 16 GB microSD extension card pre-installed. You can add as much external memory to the Droid as you want.

An interesting keyboard feature with the Droid X is something called SWYPE. Which just means that you can put your finger on the first letter of the word you want to type, swipe and stop at the next letter and the next and the next without ever having to lift your finger. Then the Droid X does its best to assemble the word you “swyped” together.

In Cameras and Multimedia both phones have much more than the normal phone. The iPhone is equipped with a 5MP camera and 720p resolution high-definition video. While the Droid X has an 8MP camera and 720p resolution high-definition video. The only advantage the iPhone holds in this area is the front-facing video camera for video conferencing or other things like Skype. But, of course, how can you really utilize this when the reception is so bad? Besides, I don’t want to have any video conferences where I have to see up everyones nose.

Here’s something that will be make or break in competition. Adobe Flash. Neither of them have it right now, but the Droid X software update 2.2 is expected to. Giving Droid users access to hundreds and hundreds of websites, videos, songs, sounds and other media. Meanwhile, Steve Jobs says that Flash is not fit for the iPhone and doesn’t ever plan to make the iPhone compatible with it. But that’s missing the point, whether or not you think Adobe Flash is good enough for anything, you have to face the reality that hundreds and hundreds of websites use it.

Both phones have Wifi and 3G internet. But once again the Droid X comes out on top. Both phones can tether, (meaning you can connect it your computer and use it as an internet provider) but the Droid X can be used as a Wifi Hotspot (meaning it can broadcast Wifi signals that can be used by multiple computers.)

The new Motorola/Google Droid X is proving to be a formidable foe for the iPhone 4 (say that three times fast.) Apple is going to have to start selling more than hype and slick/cool equipment, they are going to have to start competing and improving. They were spoiled at first, sitting on top of the smartphone industry for years. But now is when we will see how Apple truly performs under competition. Can Apple keep up? Can other smartphones keep up? That is what we will find out.

-Ben

Update July 22, 2010: New numbers show that the iPhone 4 is selling less than its predecessor, the iPhone 3GS.

Update July 22, 2010: Some Droid X users are experiencing issues with the screen: Flickering vertical lines. The problem effects less than one percent of the Droid X’s produced. This problem has been solved, and anyone having this problem can go to the Verizon store to exchange it for a new, working Droid X.