Casting Pearls Before Swine

Seriously, I wonder what I should do about this.  The last 3 or 4 posts here are as good as anything since the stories of Tito Bandito and his perpetual McDonald's soda cup.

The world just keeps going, paying no notice of it.  Probably trying to make me smoke.  Is there no one who is not part of this conspiracy?

I'm going to go see Lone Survivor.  I read some reviews and a few reminded me of a time long ago when Once Upon a Time In the West came out.  It was during a period when it was hip to decry anything slightly violent, unless the violence involved mobs storming administration buildings or snarling and stopping traffic in the name of peace.

Wait.
So it is bad if a politician screws with traffic because someone is not in his camp---could be dangerous and cost lives---but ok when unions or others do it in the name of some self righteous zealotry?  Let's think about one set of standards someday.

Anyway, the film critic at the Miami Herald made such a complaint of the opening scenes of that movie, admittedly walked out in the first 10 minutes,  slammed the flick so hard that it was pulled after just a few days.  It was one of the best of westerns--spaghetti western with Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda and others.  Pure classic.

But it was the pretense of the critics that they were giving original viewpoints, when they were merely echoing the hipster intellectual party line of the time, that was obvious to me.  That kind of trendy pseudo-intellectualism has always made me want to rebel or punch someone.  I see similar idiocy in the language of many of Lone Survivor's reviews.

My response to pandering critics is, I'll see the flick, even though I think our mideast involvement has been insane since probably the 1950s.  Certainly since the 70s.  But that is not the point of the thing.  I do not dislike our policy because I think the cultures and people there are marvelous and wonderful.  I think they are examples of the mass insanity typical of religious fanaticism, and religious states in general.  Especially Islamic states.  Very brutal and backward and impossible.

You cannot deal with religious states, and we should mind our own business, and define "our interests"  little more narrowly.  As it is, we could go to war anywhere in the name of national security and "US interests abroad".  This crap about bringing democracy to everyone in the world is improper on various levels.  For one thing democracy and liberty are not one and same.  For another, if those societies wanted something different they've had many centuries to change things.

So there.  And you can't make me smoke today, so quit trying.