baldilocks

If You Get an Email From my Baldilocks Account,,,

Don't click on the link! Some jackhole hacked my account.

Tale of the Tigers: Second Edition

It's almost ready.  Wait until you see the new front cover!

Because my publisher is a POD publisher, there will be some fees for the re-edit and from the distributor for the revision, around $500. So I'm selling the original version of Tale of the Tigers at the low price of $12.99 at my book site only.  Get it now and help me get the new one going!  If you buy the old version, I'll throw in the new one for free with proof of purchase from today, March 30, or later.

Or you can donate to my revision fund!

What else do I have in the works? A new novel (what's a little dystopia between friends?) And a book of short stories. It's amazing what one can come up with using the assistance of memory and imagination.

Bill Ayers: "I Wrote 'Dreams From My Father'" (KingShamus)

The great Jerome Corsi documents yet another shrapnel fragment flying off the continuing Obama train wreck. 

 

Bill Ayers: One more, one more (question)

Question:Thank you sir, thank you, thank you. Time magazine columnist Joe Klein wrote that President Obama's book, "Dreams from My Father," quote: "may be the best written memoir ever produced by an American politician."

Ayers: I agree with that.

Question:What is your opinion of Barack Obama's style as a writer and uh …

Ayers: I think the book is very good, the second book ("The Audacity of Hope") is more of a political hack book, but uh, the first book is quite good.

Question: Also, you just mentioned the Pentagon and Tomahawk …

Ayers: Did you know that I wrote it, incidentally?

Question: What's that?

Ayers: I wrote that book.

Several audience members: Yeah, we know that.

Question: You wrote that?

Ayers: Yeah, yeah. And if you help me prove it, I’ll split the royalties with you. Thank you very much.

Oooooof.

WND contributor Jack Cashill seems to thinkthis is a shot across Barack Obama's bow.  In his opinion, the very anti-war Bill Ayers is angry at Obama for the President's Libyan war kinetic military action.  I think that's a pretty good assessment.

I don't believe that's the entire story here though.  I think Bill Ayers is suffering from a classic case of 'Tire Tracks From Under Obama's Bus' Syndrome.  Peace Prize Barry basically used Ayers like a kleenex.  Instead of Ayers catching at least a little credit for penning Dreams--something like 'By Barack Obama and William Ayers'--homeboy got a whole lot of nothing.   

It might have been easier on Ayers to get no props for Dreamswhen Obambi was a hack community rabble-rouser or a benchwarming Illinois state Senator.  When the former Weatherman watched Obama become a Democrat Party show-horse and media-created President, without ever acknowledging Bill Ayers' full contribution to the St. Bambi mythos, that was probably incredibly grating.  Obama's North African adventurism may have been simply the last straw.

More importantly than Bill Ayers needing to recover from his skinned knee and bruised ego, this episode is just one more nail in the coffin for the Barack Obama 2008 campaign narrative.  Dreams From My Fatherwas a big piece of Obama's intellectual curriculum vitae.  As opposed to the supposedly illiterate Dubya or the crusty old warrior John McCain, Candidate Lightbringer was a serious author who had written not one, but two books.  Dreams and The Audacity of Hope were meant to display Barry's intellectual firepower.  While the junior Senator from Illinois had almost no legislative accomplishments, his alleged mastery of the written word was supposed to assure nervous voters that they were supporting a true Renaissance man.

And now we see the myth of Obama's intellectualism crumbling.  All it took was one of the key enablers in Bamster's web of lies to get pissed off at his former protegé.  Barry's chickens are finally coming home to roost.

But really, one can't be completely shocked when a politician as weaselly as Barack Obama is found out to have inflated his resume.  To paraphrase Winston Churchill's comments about Clement Atlee, Senator HopeyChangey's barely-there congressional record had much to be humble about.  No empty-suit candidate with a similar doughnut hole in his history could do anything else.  Obama is clearly no exception to this fibbing phenomenon.

The blame for Obama being able to pull off this sham rests not with the president, but with the American mainstream press.  The New York Times/MSNBC/Washington Post Axis of Fail constantly pats itself on the crotch for brave truth-telling.  Instead of digging into Obama's shady past, they did everything they could to bury damaging details about their preferred candidate and attacked his opposition.

Better still, this MSM willful blindness also reveals just how badly they suck at the one job in which they're supposed to be experts.  They're the ones who were supposed to figure out just how much Bill Ayers figured into Barack Obama's narrative.  The lamestream press allowed the illusion of Barack Obama's superior intelligence--a major component of his appeal to voters--to flourish without a question.  By doing that, they set themselves up to be punked by bloggers who have shown more initiative in the last two years than Big Media has shown in the last two decades.

UPDATE: Now a big ole' Memeorandum thread too. Time to pile on while the piling on is good, I say.

UPDATE II:  Allahpundit offers a dissenting view:

Via the American Thinker. I think John Hawkins is spot on in detecting the sarcasm here, but if you’re inclined to believe that Ayers is The One’s ghostwriter, you’re bound to detect a “deeper truth” in his tone.

... I think he enjoys mocking people who push this idea and enjoys it doubly when they can’t detect the mockery. In fact, I’d bet that this is his stock response anytime the book is mentioned in his presence — insisting that he wrote it to see if the listener laughs and then toying with them if they seem credulous. But as I say, your mileage may vary.

Yeah, this doesn't exactly work for me.  AP's analysis blithely discounts Jack Cashill's work that pretty much proves that Bill Ayers wrote "Dreams".  Cashill lays out the bones of his argument here.

To credit Dreamsto Obama alone, one has to posit any number of near miraculous variables: he somehow found the time; he somewhere mastered nautical jargon and postmodern jabberwocky; he in some sudden, inexplicable way developed the technique and the talent to transform himself from stumbling amateur to literary superstar without any stops in between.

If anything, the last few years should make Cashill's thesis even more believable.  The Duffer-in-Chief is not exactly breaking his back as President.  Dude works harder on his NCAA basketball brackets than on seemingly anything else.   The guy requires a teleprompter for both formal and informal occasions.  It seems highly unlikely that Barack Obama would put in the work necessary to become a strong writer.       

Moreover, why can't two things be true at once?  Why can't Bill Ayers be sarcastic and be telling the truth at the same time?  I mean, it's sorta weird, but it's not such a strange thing.  Ayers is a squirrelly lib hack.  It makes weird sense that he'd do something so goofy and underhanded.  Homeboy probably gets a little thrill thinking how clever he is laying out this secret in plain view.

Anthony Weiner: TeaBagger (KingShamus)

It's just wonderful that even a thumb sucking lib like Congressman Weiner can admit he thinks BarryMed stinks on ice.  Go ahead, homie.  Chug down that sweet refreshing Haterade.

Rep. Anthony Weiner said Wednesday he was looking into how a health law waiver might work for New York City.

Weiner, who is likely to run for mayor of New York, said that because of the city’s special health care infrastructure, his office was looking into alternatives that might make more sense. Weiner is one of the health care law’s biggest supporters; during the debate leading up to reform, he was one of the last holdouts in Congress for the public option.

Why is this happening, Weiner?

“The president said, ‘If you have better ideas that can accomplish the same thing, go for it,’” said Weiner. “I’m in the process now of trying to see if we can take [President Barack Obama] up on it in the city of New York, … and I’m taking a look at all of the money we spend in Medicaid and Medicare and maybe New York City can come up with a better plan.”

Here's a plan for Weiner and the rest of the Democrats:  How about we scrap the entire thing and call it a wash?  Y'all can make lame sorority girl-style excuses for why you voted for ObamaCare--"I was really drunk," "My ride took off without me," "He said we were cool"--and we'll completely understand.  I swear, everybody on the Right will stop laughing at you after a couple of weeks.  A month, tops.    

It's neat how the people who screamed the loudest about passing this monstrosity--the unions, the media and the progosphere sycophants--are the ones who most desperately want a note from Papa Barry to get out of ObamaCare. What's even better is that the Republicans in Congress are still dawdling along wondering if they should completely defund ObamaCare. 

Ummm, here's a clue.  If everybody--even Anthony "Brainless Knee-Jerk Statist" Weiner, for God's sake--is begging the government trying to get out of nationalized medicine, that means it's a dog's lunch that can be scrapped with little political risk.

I snagged this story link from Jonah Goldberg's twitter feed.

Emperor Still Has No Clothes Alert (KingShamus)

Baldilocks wondered when President Obambya was gonna get around to asking Congress for authority to...you know...go to war.

I too have a question--Does SuperGenius Hussein McSmartyPants have a plan or is he just making it up as he goes along?

“Our military action is in support of an international mandate from the [United Nations]Security Council that specifically focuses on the humanitarian threat posed by Colonel Qadhafi to his people,” the American president said. “Not only was he carrying out murders of civilians, but he threatened more.”

Okee-dokee, St. Barry.  So you're just doing your Euro-hip Nobel Prize winning humanitarian act.  Right.  Got it.

“I also have stated that it is U.S. policy that Qadhafi needs to go,” Obama said, noting that a United Nations resolution last week authorizing force against Libya is based on humanitarian concerns, not regime change. “When it comes to our military action…we are going to make sure that we stick to that mandate.”

Wait...what?

I hate to get pushy about this, but which one is it Bamster?  Are we enforcing a no-fly zone, or are we trying to stick a fork into Mad Moammar? 

Maybe we should ask newly butched-up warlord Nicholas Sarkozy what the hell is going on here.  He might have a clue.  Obama clearly does not.  Even better than the President's feckless display of spectacular obliviousness is the fact that he's created a foreign policy scenario where a sawed-off twerpy French Prime Minister probably has the best handle on the situation.      

Besides Obama delivering the change we can all be horrified by, it's important to consult history.  Erwin Rommel famously remarked, "No plan survives contact with the enemy." Very true, but the Field Marshall never told us what would happen to the plan when we finally made contact with our allies.  In case you've gotten confused, we're supposed to be protecting Libyan rebels from the predations of Colonel Qadaffi.  Nobody really knows who the hell these people are, who they're friends with or what kind of government they want to create in the place of the current.  Armed with that lack of information, of course we should throw our support behind the Libyan rebel forces.

Just to be clear:  Obama has just gotten us into a war where we're not really calling the shots while we're somehow doing most of the fighting with no clear idea what victory would look like for people who probably despise us with a thousand year old Kaaba-sized chip on their shoulders and who will most likely plot against us once we're done doing the wet work for them.

Anybody else ready for 2012?

War Powers Resolution of 1973

Pretty straight-forward.

PURPOSE AND POLICY

SEC. 2. (a) It is the purpose of this joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgement of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicate by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations.

(b) Under article I, section 8, of the Constitution, it is specifically provided that the Congress shall have the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution, not only its own powers but also all other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

(c) The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations  where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the  circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2)  specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by  attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed  forces.

Pray tell, which of the emphasized circumstances exists?  Which of these gives President Obama license to order the intervention in Libya?

Help me out, here.

Consistency

...among the leftmost wing of the House Democrats.  Good to see it.

Reps. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Donna Edwards (Md.), Mike Capuano (Mass.), Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Rob Andrews (N.J.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Barbara Lee (Calif.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.) “all strongly raised objections to the constitutionality of the president’s actions [in Libya]” during that call, said two Democratic lawmakers who took part.

Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) even asked why President Obama's actions aren't impeachable.  And from an unnamed Democrat lawmaker:

“They consulted the Arab League. They consulted the United Nations. They did not consult the United States Congress...They’re creating wreckage, and they can’t obviate that by saying there are no boots on the ground. … There aren’t boots on the ground; there are Tomahawks in the air.”

In my previous post, a guest tries to float (verb usage intentional) the idea that there was no congressional authorization for either of the Iraq Wars, among other actions in which the United States Military has been ordered to engage.  Of course the assertion about the two Iraq conflicts was easily disputed.  I haven't bothered to look up the others, most of which were conducted by Democrat presidential administrations.

I do hope the Left wing of the congressional Democrats stands firm.  We will see.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

There's Something Missing (UPDATED)

I can't figure out what it is.

BENGHAZI, Libya — President Barack Obama authorized limited military action against Libya Saturday, saying Moammar Gadhafi's continued assault on his own people left the U.S. and its international partners with no other choice. The Pentagon said it fired 110 cruise missiles at 20 targets along the Libyan coast.

Let me see...what's missing here?  Oh yes!  It's this: the US Congress hasn't authorized this military action aka war.

Surely we will soon be seeing the antiwar crowd out and about, blocking traffic and asserting that the president is waging an illegal war, a war-for-oil, etc.

I'm sure we will see this soon.

UPDATE:  President Obama is in Brazil.  He announced this strike against Gadhafi from the Brazilian capital. It appears that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is running things from Paris.

UPDATE: I knew we could count on the antiwar activists!

"Anti-war protesters arrested near White House"

The protesters, some shouting anti-war slogans and singing "We Shall Not Be Moved," were arrested after ignoring orders to move away from the gates of the White House. The demonstrators cheered loudly as Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon's secret history of the Vietnam War that was later published in major newspapers, was arrested and led away by police.

And there were protests all around the country! New York, Chicago, San Francisco...

There's only one problem.  The protesters were there to mark the eighth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, to call for complete withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan (told ya so) and to support Bradley Manning, the Army private who leaked classified documents to Wikileaks.

It has only been one day, however. I'm sure they'll get around to protesting the US intervention in Libya.  I have faith!

 

Of Japan and New Orleans: Honor, Shame and Identity

A great deal of commentary and comments has been generated which compares the horrendous situation in Japan to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Observers note that while New Orleans residents—and even police officers—took disaster’s opportunity to loot businesses and homes, the Japanese survivors of the 9.0 earthquake and the resultant tsunami have absolutely abstained from such behavior.  People who know far more about Japan than I have concluded that the absence of such behavior is due to Japan’s singular, nearly undiluted culture—a thousand-year long tradition in which honor is the only thing one has and the loss of which is the greatest loss imaginable.

This makes sense.  After all, most material things that are lost can be accrued again relatively quickly while one is still living.  Lost honor, however, is very tough to regain and is, sometimes, gone forever.

Some of the comments have bordered on the racialist—that the Japanese don’t loot because it’s not in their racial make-up and that others—namely blacks—do so because it is part of our racial make-up.  Leaving aside the insult, I think the difference goes deeper than that, even deeper than the concept of lost honor.  There’s something that the Japanese understand which all too many black and other Americans used to understand but now do not: that what one does in public and how one treats his/her neighbor(s) affects not only the individuals involved but also the entire community.  This concept applies to local communities and to the larger community; the nation.  Not understanding that is the downside of individualism.  (Of course, honor-shame cultures have their downsides as well; Japan has a very high rate of suicide.)

I submit that Katrina’s New Orleans was a manifestation of a people—namely black people—who have voluntarily given up their honor and their sense of shame.  They have abandoned themselves.

Black Americans—specifically, the descendants of American slavery--are the most American of Americans; I said this before and I’m certainly not the first to make this observation.  Unlike all other immigrants to America, our ancestors were forcibly cut off from all of the totems of their various West African tribes: names, languages, family structures, belief systems.  These things have buoyed all other ethnic groups—including recent African immigrants—in their sojourn to this country and all of them had the choice to hold onto the elements of their cultures that fit into the American ideal and discard those which were incompatible.  American slaves were granted no such luxury.  Our ancestors were emptied of their identities and re-created in the image of what America had for them.  And, up until roughly fifty years ago, much of that image was molded by oppression and scorn. 

However, most black Americans held on tightly to the universal totems of personal and communal honor: love of God, family, love of community, industriousness, self-reliance--all of which also flow and follow from America’s founding document.  (That America strayed away from those principles with respect to black Americans isn’t the point, that those principles even existed is. And, with those concrete principles in hand, black Americans were able to point to them and say to other Americans, “live up to your—to our-- principles.”)  

We may stem from Africa, but we are not of Africa—not even me.  Our character and (sub)culture are wholly American and, largely, our American ancestors fashioned these for themselves--appropriating most of the good things which America had to offer and which largely insulated them from the bad.  That is the inheritance which all too many of us have repudiated.

What we saw in New Orleans after Katrina was a microcosm of the character disintegration of this most American of Americans.  It wasn’t born of DNA nor of the historical effects of slavery; it was born of the wholesale abandonment of a character tried and refined by fire and of the principles which held black Americans together in prior times of adversity. 

If mother and father don’t love child enough to at least try to create the most tried and true environment for the nurturing of that child, it follows that neither mother, nor father, nor child will love and respect neighbors or community.  We declined en masse the prescriptions and proscriptions of God regarding the family and allowed government to usurp the place of the head of the family--the husband/father/leader/protector. We abandoned the identity which our forebears shaped for us and put chaos in its place.  And when disaster strikes, it’s every man and woman for self.  Multiply that times a few million.

 In short, the average Japanese person loves his (Japanese) neighbor and does not covet that which belongs to that neighbor.  It’s part of their culture—their belief system.  And they’ve held to that system without Judaism or Christianity being a significant part of their society.  They know who they are and from whence they’ve come. 

When are we going to remember who we are?

Helping Japan:

Soldier's Angels

 

Lisa Murkowski: The RINO Proves Her Uselessness (KingShamus)

The RINO, aka a Republican In Name Only, is a species of political animal that loves self-congratulation.  Specifically, if you listen to a RINO, he'll mention platitudes like, "socially moderate, but fiscally conservative'.  The RINO will boast about how they don't get bogged down in morality or overly religious debates.  A RINO is just concerned about keeping America's fiscal house in order.

All of it is a lie.

The most recent example is Lisa Murkowski, the Senator from Alaska who pitched a fit when she was denied the GOP nomination in the Republican primary, then used a write-in campaign to get her spoiled brat way.  That was pretty awful, but there was a razor-thin hope that she would at least be of some utility in this congressional term.  Supporters of hers argued that at least she would be decent on economic and budgetary issues. 

Eh, not so much.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has come out in opposition to the House’s attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, making her the first Republican senator to specifically support the beleaguered organization.

“I believe Planned Parenthood provides vital services to those in need and disagree with their funding cuts in the bill,”Murkowski wrote in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Vice Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). “I ask you to consider these programs going forward to determine if there is room for allowing continued funding.”

Planned Parenthood provides vital services?  What would those vital services be, Lisa?  I guess an organization that gleefully provides legal coverfor pimps trying to get abortions for underage girls is now considered an un-cuttable budget item.

Forget Murkowski's blithe brainless notion of what Planned Parenthood really is.  She's a classic Ruling Class idiot with a splash of over-entitled nepotism thrown in for good measure.  There is no changing that sad fact.

Instead, focus on the description fake-conservative Republicans apply to themselves.  They constantly crow about their desire to balance budgets and cut deficits.  Yet the minute they come across Planned Parenthood--a corrupt criminal enterprise masquerading as a women's health business--here comes the supposed penny-pinching Lisa Murkowski to the rescue.  Instead of advocating for government to stop funding PP, she's tripping over herself trying to give them more taxpayer dollars.

This is exactly why you cannot trust a RINO.  All their talk of fiscal conservatism is a line of talk to fool the rubes.  If anything is unnecessary for the government to fund, it's abortion clinics.  They make plenty of money.  They do not need federal support at all.   

When it comes down to it, RINOs are creatures of electoral necessity.  Seen from that perspective, a fiscal conservative/social moderate is painted into a very difficult corner.  They almost have to spend government funds on liberal agenda items. 

How else can a RINO declare themselves socially moderate on abortion?  Roe v. Wadeis still in place, so a liberal Republican can't do much there.  The abortion issue is settled for pro-choicers.  Besides being all for late-term abortions, the RINO has very few partisan moves to convince voters that he's pro-choice.  The only thing he can do is defend government funding of abortion providers.

The nature of a liberal Republican's partisan stance and the tone of modern politics short-circuits the supposed balance that RINOs believe they've achieved between budgetary stinginess and social issues moderation.  They can never be the cost-cutting deficit hawks they advertise themselves to be.  Their liberal supporters have to be placated or they won't show up to support lefty GOPers.

Now if rank-n-file republicans can see this, why can't the Beltway GOP?

...how do Washington Republicans respond to this betrayal by Murkowski, who lost the primary, vilified a patriot like Joe Miller, and lied about wanting to use taxpayer funds for abortion? They promote Murkowski as spokeswoman for the Republican Party, of course.

Naturally.

Ya know, maybe I was wrong.  Maybe it isn't the RINOs that are useless.  Maybe it's the entire ridiculous mind-numbingly incompetent wndow-licking Republican Party leadership that needs to ride on the short bus.

Baby Boomer Blues (KingShamus)

Matt over at the Conservative Hideout has some thoughts on the so-called 'Worst Generation'.

My parent’s generation spent the wealth that was so painfully earned by their parents.  Then, they created failed program after failed program, all paid for with trillions of borrowed dollars.  And when the programs were clearly failures, and, in fact, made things worse, they plodded on.  The kept following the leftist narrative, and never-ever cut their own benefits, no matter how unsustainable they were.  They also rejected the spirit of their parents, who had endured the great depression, and survived WW II.  Their parents had sacrificed, but the boomers wanted what they wanted, and they wanted it immediately.

Read the whole piece, ya'all.

While I agree with much of Matt's sentiments, I think the Baby Boomers sometimes get a bad rap.  After all, they didn't come up with Social Security.  That was second-gen progressive Franklin Roosevelt's idea.  The Great Society programs--Medicare, Aid To Families With Dependent Children--were dreamed up by Lyndon Johnson.

No, the Boomers didn't create a lot of the now-crumbling social spending architecture that threatens to destroy America.  What many folks in the post WWII generation did was assume that the nationalized Ponzi schemes and subsidization of personal failure they inherited from older generations were going to continue without consequence.  With that monumentally absurd analysis in place, the New Left movements that arose in the Baby Boom generation set about creating ideologies and rationalizations that reinforced their flawed assumptions.

Look at one example.  Conservatives assert that welfare is destroying the American family.  Baby Boom feminists (and their intellectual progeny) argue that the traditional family is outdated and sexist.  The nuclear familial arrangement, with its coercion and fundamental unfairness towards women, is not worth being concerned about.  The dissolution of that unfair institution is not only necessary, it should be welcomed.  Welfare might be hurting marriage and the old family arrangements, but it's just doing the needed work to get society to the post-traditonal family that feminists crave.

While some elements of the Boomer left were busy cementing themselves into soft socialism and cultural Marxism, many others entered into the media.  Take a gander at who sets the agenda in much of the MSM.  Arthur 'Pinch' Sulzberger, the head of the New York Times, was born in 1951.  Steve Capus, president of NBC News, was born in 1963.  The editor of the Washington Post is Marcus Brauchli, who was born in 1961.   

These folks--and many others in the legacy media--are all part of the post-war Baby Boom.  How many times have you watched some gauzy nostalgia-laden montage of 60's and 70's era protests/concerts/hippie love-ins/Timothy Leary yammerings?  The reason why these dreadful creations are so ubiquitous is because the Boomers who look back at that time so fondly are the ones who make up the majority of American news organizations.  Further, most of the contemporary coverage of the baby boom social movements are almost always positive.  The excesses of dudes like Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman or Bill Ayers are generally airbrushed away.  Even better?  The self-congratulation to actual accomplishment ratio is usually quite skewed.  "Hooray for us, we stopped the Vietnam War and stuff.  Also, we listened to the Velvet Underground, so yeah..."  Yikes.

Because Baby Boomers--especially lefty boomers--dominate the media, they paint a distorted picture of 60's/70's youth.  If you just watched CNN or read Time Magazine, you'd think every teenager in America from 1966 to 1978 was an idealistic acid-gobbling Vietnam War protester who lived on commune in Southern California with her Native American spirit guide, seven sex partners and five children named after various wildflowers while David Crosby constructed ever more elaborate water bongs and Gloria Steinem ritualistically burned her bra.  The reality is that boomers during their formative years inhabited a broad continuum, from stern straight-laced traditionalists to wild-eyed liberal doucherockets, and that many of these neat categorizations we're fed just don't add up.

What is the worst sin of the Baby Boomers?  The knee-jerk leftism to which some of them continue to bitterly cling is annoying as hell.  The unreal self-descriptions and constant back-patting is tiresome.  The thing is that none of them would be particularly fatal.  They'd just be aggravating.

The most egregious error committed by the Boomers isn't any of that crap.  According to Stanley Kurtz, via the great Pundette, the issue for the 'Worst Generation' is the fact that they didn't make babies.

In 2005, I reviewed some of the first books on the subject and concluded that a demographically induced economic crisis could spark a revival of religious traditionalism, a far more radical decomposition of the family, or both.

At the time, it looked as if a possible demographically-induced economic crisis was at least a couple of decades away. We seem to be running ahead of schedule. To a large extent, the economic troubles here and in Europe already factor in the unsustainable entitlements of the future.

Although an economic crisis is imminent, and the underlying cause demographic, I haven’t noticed many calls for increased child-bearing. That is in striking contrast to the world-wide movement in response to the less proximate and more theoretical global warming crisis. It’s a measure of how unthinkable changes in our post-sixties life-styles still are. Yet it doesn’t mean change won’t happen, if and when a demographic-economic crisis truly strikes.

It probably doesn't matter all that much that a lot of Boomer peeps smoked a gazillion pounds of OG Kush looking for a cheap buzz or a spiritual experience or whatever.  The tendency for elf-esteem boosting hagiography of 60's and 70's accomplishments doesn't explain our present difficulties.  The leftist leaning of many in that generation by itself doesn't damn the post-war generation.

The fact that they couldn't be bothered to squeeze out a few more kids here and there is the lasting destructive legacy of the baby boom demographic.  In many cases, it wasn't purposeful.  Their intentions were often noble, or at least not totally self-serving anyway.  Often there were perfectly rational rationalizations for their reproductive decisions.  Career moves, financial choices, a concern for the environment, bad relationships, high divorce rates; all those things tend to slow down the baby-making.  More, all of these factors could've happened to any generation. 

I really don't think baby boomers sat down as an entire generational cohort and decided to stop making kids as much as their parents did.  I also don't think they all planned a demographic collapse that would threaten the entire economic future of the America.  There were definitely more than a few Boomers who were worried about overpopulation, but for the most part it was a host of decisions and life events that slowed the Boomer breeding.

The problem here is, like so many other good (or at least not-evil) intentions, America has managed to pave a road right into the abyss with miles of supposedly good plans and allegedly smart ideas.  The Boom generation didn't mean for this to happen.  Nonetheless, we find ourselves in dire circumstances due to some very misguided decisions.