What is Conservatism?

We'd have to input the measurement data into the As Far Away As I Can Get computer and let it do the calculation. Is it further from Tennessee to China or from Artlerville to the U.S. Marines? I'm tilting toward your distancing, but it could be a close call.

Funny you should mention this. My wife and I were just discussing this on a drive back from supper. Somehow our discussion came around to the many silly westerners I met in Asia, who gushed over their time in China. They swooned, waxed eloquent and were head-over-heels in love with the PRC.  It was always westerners who acted this way. Overseas Chinese had a more sober view. 

This offended me for any number of reasons. China in the 1980s was pretty much a dump. The roads were so poor that driving around the country left one with sore kidneys and a bad back. The food was horrible. Outside of the big cities, one saw pigs wandering around the roads.  One didn't have to ask where a toilet was. All one had to do was follow one's nose. 

Most people working for the various government companies were obnoxious and virtually everyone was dishonest. Nothing worked particularly well, from phones to bathtubs. The Chinese were huge racists.  They were particularly good at figuring out what made individuals tick and were expert at telling such people what they wanted to hear. Truth was not held in high regard.  They were complete cynics and opportunists. As one French friend said, "Ze Chinese zey are a peuple without illusions." Perhaps he and I had only run into bad examples of the great civilization. 

In my opinion, anyone who was taken in by such people and such a place were dupes, at best. I figured many must have had problems with their own histories and/or the countries they came from. Maybe they were just spoiled, bored children who needed stimulation of a foreign nature to feel alive. Pathetic.

I admit, I was very pointed with some of these fools and was not shy about disabusing them of their fantasies.  More than once, I set these dreamers straight and told them that the lowest coolie in China looked down on any and all Westerners. It didn't matter if he was the president of the USA, he was a barbarian, i.e. not Han Chinese.

Some of these Lotus eaters were shocked when I made such observations and protested. In a couple of cases this happened during a meal with Chinese sitting around the table. I told the snow-flakes to ask any Chinese sitting at the table whether or not I was right. I can clearly recall the Chinese smiling and saying, "Yes, Fu Zu is correct." This deflated the Sinophiles/PRC Lackeys only momentarily. They were soon back to praising the PRC to the heavens. It was like someone high on dope. 

We lived in Hongkong for six years, and although my wife is Singaporean Chinese, she never visited the PRC while we lived in Hongkong. She never even had the desire to visit the place. Perhaps because she had a pretty good idea of what she would have seen.  

Despite the above, I married a Chinese woman and consider a couple of Chinese, of the non-PRC type, to be among my closest friends. The people are ok, the system sucks. 

I agree. although my time in Asia was in the 70s and not in PRC. The closest I ever got to the mainland was HK. I did see a lot of Asia and Into-china. The impression I got was two fold. Americans were not loved, Vietnam being the major reason, but almost every country despised the mainland Chinese and every country had bad feeling going back hundreds of years. In the case of Vietnam over a thousand. 

As westerners we may not be welcomed with open arms but the countries of Asia, including communist Vietnam fear the PRC and were moving to a unified front until the election. In the absence of American leadership and strength they will be forced to come to accommodation sooner or later. I have no experience with India but the Indians I have met seem to feel the same. 

Slam Bang Theater is a hoot. And that old pie-in-the-face shtick never gets old.

I’d never heard of Mr. Peppermint either. Given that this is from Dallas, I assume that when Mr. Peppermint discovers that his cane has been stolen, he slaps on a six-shooter and goes looking for the culprit.

I sometimes wonder how much of this is motivated by people, for what ever reasons, wanting someone else to make decisions for them. Like you say, too many people today are childish.  

It’s also in perfect synergy with childless females who wish to nurture us by proxy through government. I don’t go into easy Freudian analogies myself. But the plethora of barren women in politics is a plague.

I’m in the middle of watching 1932’s Shanghai Express with Marlene Dietrich and Warner Oland. Oland plays a half-Chinese/half-English character.

When boarding the train on the way to Shanghai, another passengers asks Oland that the chances are of getting through safely, especially with a civil war brewing. Oland says:



The movie is so-so at this point. I’ve got about 30 minutes to go so I’ll see it through. But there’s been nothing particularly compelling about this film. But I thought that quote was interesting in the context of what we'd been discussing.

Mier Dagan,  in 1973 after the October War,  said almost the same to me about the Arab world. Both Moslem and Asian have similar histories and ideology of oppressive rule.