Classics of Conservatism - Part XX - Boomsday

Click here for a previous Classic of Conservatism.

We have been told for generations that social security is insolvent or will soon be insolvent and/or will run out of money someday. We have watched as one Republican president after another has proposed some solution, only to see that solution quickly shot down in a hail of demagoguery. We watch every election cycle as the MSM/DNC tries to frighten seniors into believing that the Republican candidate has a secret plan to cut/deny SS benefits. The social security system started as an illegal ponzi scheme. The political process has turned the system into a parody of itself.

Most of us have known these things for years (unless you trust the government to take care of you in your old age). But now we have something else to keep the social security issue in perspective - a new novel and a new word. "Boomsday" is the name of both the novel and a deadline. Boomsday is the day when baby boomers begin retiring with full benefits to be paid by the next generation. While it is not clear that the disaster will begin immediately upon the retirement of the first boomers, it IS clear (from the novel and from our own knowledge of economics and common sense) that the fuse will be lit on that day and will quickly burn to its inevitable conclusion.

more than just a novel








Boomsday the novel is set against the backdrop of the financial consequences for the United States government and the economy. The novel describes the actions of one principled person with a catchy name who fights back using her even more appropriately named blog.



The reader is treated to stories of riots on golf courses in protest against the boomers' easy retirement lifestyle at the expense of later generations. The reader is further presented with the main character's unique and imaginitive proposals for rescue of the SS system. We share her dismay as her main proposal is compromised away, despite retaining the same name and form.

"Boomsday" is not simply a dry novel filled with statistics and grim warnings. The book is filled with wit and humor and even some fast paced action. As the characters race toward the climax, the reader detects a hint of a John Grisham story.

Boomsday is about more than simply the collapse of social security. Boomsday is about Presidential and legislative politics. The politics and the humor take the story a little far afield of its original mission. The author's antipathy to the "Christian Right" is also misleading and distracting. The book is filled with salty language, probably in an attempt to attract younger readers to find out about their impending fate.

The book is to be celebrated for reminding us of the war in Bosnia, which still occupies American forces and serves as a symbol for so much of what is wrong with our government and its policies.

















[The above images do not actually appear in the book (there are no illustrations), but they demonstrate some of the major plot points that guide the story.]


But the most important function of the book is to jump start the discussion of the disaster that awaits us when SS can no longer survive in its current form. The book, much like the main character, seems to want only to begin a "dialogue", during which presumably more Americans will realize the grave danger with which we are faced. The book fulfills that role.

Coining a term that will serve to remind the audience of the impending SS crisis is crucial. With the use of the term "Boomsday", we now have a word that will shorthand the concept and aid our discussion. For too long, the MSM/DNC monopoly not only provided misinformation on key issues, it also prevented any discussion of key issues by refusing to discuss or even identify key ideas or problems. The imminent collapse of SS is one of those concepts. The one word identifier - "Boomsday" - now allows us to warn of the impending Boomsday just as the word "9-11" allows us to warn of future terrorism in our cities.

I recommend the book, but, more importantly, I recommend the word.

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update - I have updated the photos above.

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

At the precise moment in history when the U.S. has abandoned any attempt to transmit Anglo-Saxon virtues to its own citizens, much less to immigrants, George Bush wants to grant citizenship to hordes of immigrants who are here precisely because they are fleeing cultures that are utterly dysfunctional and ruinous for the humans who live in them.

Ann Coulter - 5-30-07

Quote of the day - Milton Friedman

"The most important ways in which I think the Internet will affect the big issue is that it will make it more difficult for government to collect taxes."

Milton Friedman

[For those readers who have reached only "entry level" conservatism, I believe that the above quote points out one of the biggest BENEFITS of the internet - Salt]

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

It is staggering that anyone could be so self-infatuated as to single out their own particular policy preferences as "anti-war." Anyone who is not a sadist or an idiot is anti-war. The only serious issue is how best to limit, deter or conclude war. But responsibility for confronting this issue is evaded by those preoccupied with the moral preening of being "anti-war."

Thomas Sowell

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere.

C. S. Lewis

Coming soon . . . . . Boomsday

Islamic female suicide bombers; dwarfs; Mark Steyn; Liat Collins

From Mark Steyn comes the following story of Islamic female suicide bombers and their reward:

Islamic Jihad is planning to send waves of female suicide bombers into action against the Zionist Entity. Asked by an Israeli reporter whether self-detonating ladies enjoy the same 72-virgin deal as the lads, an Arab scholar said no, but that the gals will be served in Paradise by "dwarfs." Snow White got seven dwarfs, but it's unclear whether Blow White will get the full 72: Sleepy, Grumpy, Bashful, etc., all the way down to Incendiary, Non-Alcoholic and Anti-Zionist.

Liat Collins provides further commentary in the Jerusalem Post.

Liat Collins


"Even in jihadi heaven the women are discriminated against, it seems," writes Collins

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update - Little Green Footballs posts a Hamas video featuring little muslim girls being trained as suicide bombers.

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

Not long after Sept. 11 I chanced to be heading north on I-87 between Plattsburgh and Montreal. At the border crossing from Champlain, N.Y., to Lacolle, Quebec, I noticed that what appeared to be a mini-refugee camp had sprung up. It's not often that you see teeming hordes lining up to get into Canada, so I asked the immigration officer what was going on. He rolled his eyes and did a bit of boy-those-crazy-Yanks stuff and then explained that most of the guys waiting to get in were from Pakistan. In the wake of 9/11, the authorities had rounded up various persons of interest in the New York City area. Whether or not they were terrorists, they'd certainly violated immigration law, overstaying visas and so forth. And as a result, many other illegal immigrants from Muslim countries had concluded it was time to liquidate their assets and break for the border. In other words, the roundup of a relatively small number of persons sent thousands more fleeing to Canada.

Mark Steyn - May 27, 2007

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

Obesity, the Propaganda Machine assures us, is a
"national problem," even an approaching "crisis"! What,
are all the fat people going to collapse at once? Why,
then, let's have some Federal legislation! There's
apparently no such thing as a personal problem anymore.
In fact, some obese people don't think they have a
"problem" at all. As if it were up to them to decide.
Dream on, fatso.

Joe Sobran

Quote of the day - John McCain

This vote may win favor with MoveOn and liberal primary voters, but it’s the equivalent of waving a white flag to al Qaeda.

John McCain 5-25-07 - speaking about Senators who voted against funding of the war effort.

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

The only beneficiaries of these famed hardworking immigrants — unlike you lazy Americans — are the wealthy, who want the cheap labor while making the rest of us chip in for the immigrants' schooling, food and health care.

Ann Coulter - May 23, 2007

Quote of the day - John Boehner - Immigration/Amnesty Bill

"I promised the President today that I wouldn't say anything bad about ... this piece of s*** bill."

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) - 5-22-07

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell - Amnesty

The big talking point of those who want to legalize the illegal immigrants currently in the United States is to say that it is "unrealistic" to round up and deport 12 million people.

Back in 1986 it was "unrealistic" to round up and deport the 3 million illegal immigrants in the United States then. So they were given amnesty -- honestly labeled, back then -- which is precisely why there are now 12 million illegal immigrants.

As a result of the current amnesty bill -- not honestly labeled, this time -- will it be "unrealistic" to round up and deport 40 million or 50 million illegal immigrants in the future?

Thomas Sowell - 5-22-07

Quote of the day - Washington Times

It's a disaster for national security, for keeping Islamist jihadists out of the country, for exploding the costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, for preserving the rule of law, and for that quaint principle called national sovereignty.

Washington Times - May 21, 2007

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn - amnesty

Every politician in America is opposed to amnesty -- if not the concept, then at least the word. That's why the visa starts with the letter that's furthest away from the one "amnesty" begins with. "Z" stands for zellout . . . no, hang on, zurrender or Zapatista, or some other word way up the other end of the alphabet from "amnesty."

Mark Steyn - May 20, 2007

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

Republicans have good reasons to be disappointed in their Congressmen, especially with their runaway spending and amnesty bill for illegal aliens. However, before Republican voters decide to stay home at the next election, or perhaps to vote for the Democrats, they might repeat one phrase to themselves: "Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi."

Thomas Sowell - 8-29-06

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

Criminal genius can be akin to artistic genius. The master criminal is not always driven by gain alone, and he may have no real desire to hurt others. But he finds the challenge of outwitting the law irresistible. It's almost aesthetic: Just as there is art for art's sake, there is crime for crime's sake. And even law-abiding people may have a sneaking admiration for the great criminal. (Please don't ask what this has to do with politics, or with President Clinton.)

Joe Sobran

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

"From the news coverage of Falwell's death, I began to suspect his first name was "Whether You Agree With Him or Not."

Even Falwell's fans, such as evangelist Billy Graham and former President Bush, kept throwing in the "We didn't always agree" disclaimer. Did Betty Friedan or Molly Ivins get this many "I didn't always agree with" qualifiers on their deaths? And when I die, if you didn't always agree with me, would you mind keeping it to yourself?

Let me be the first to say: I ALWAYS agreed with the Rev. Falwell."

Ann Coulter - May 16, 2007

Quote of the day - Cicero

Ability without honor is useless.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Quote of the day - Milton Friedman

The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.

Milton Friedman

Quote of the day - Nicolas Sarkozy

Nobody has to, I repeat, live in France. But when you live in France, you respect its rules. That is to say that you are not a polygamist. ... One doesn't practice female genital mutilation on one's daughters, one doesn't slit the throat of the sheep, and one respects the republican rules.

Nicolas Sarkozy

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn - Fort Dix jihadis

On that Tuesday morning in September, four of the killers got on board by using picture ID they'd acquired through the "undocumented worker" network in Falls Church, Va. Half the jurisdictions in the United States issue picture ID to people who shouldn't even be in the country, and they issue it as a matter of policy. The Fort Dix boys were pulled over for 19 traffic violations, but because they were in "sanctuary cities," any cop who suspected they were illegals was unable to report them to immigration authorities. Again, as a matter of policy.

Mark Steyn - May 13, 2007

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

Thirty was so strange for me. I've really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

C. S. Lewis

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

While Britain and other former colonial powers turned a blind eye to Africa, the likes of Mugabe looted their governments’ treasuries, their countries’ resources, their peoples’ wealth, and western taxpayers’ bountiful “development” funds. To this day, you still hear African leaders demanding to know why America won’t launch a “Marshall plan for Africa”, which conveniently overlooks the fact that since 1960 the west has sunk the cost of the Marshall plan many times over into the Dark Continent with nothing to show for it other than a few extra zeroes on the Swiss bank balances of the dictators-for-life. While the west snoozed complacently, the Afro-Marxist kleptocrats ransacked a continent.

Mark Steyn

Barrack Hussein Obama - 10,000 dead in Kansas - Obama's critics miss the point.

By now we have all heard and laughed at Barrack Hussein Obama's comment that 10,000 people died this week in Kansas due to George Bush' tornados. The actual number was around 12.

But those who laugh at Barrack Hussein Obama miss the point. He may have tried to backtrack by claiming to be tired, but he never corrected himself until after that appearance and speech were over. Those who attended that speech were supporters of Barrack Hussein Obama. There were and are his allies. They already want him to be President. They have given money to his campaign. They count on receiving federal jobs/benefits/contracts/pork/preferential treatment from a Barrack Hussein Obama administration. They are already completely immunized from facts or corrections.

The people in Barrack Hussein Obama's audience now believe that 10,000 people died in Kansas. They believe it was Bush' fault. They believe only Barrack Hussein Obama (or maybe Hillary or John Edwards) can save us from more tornados. They never heard any correction. They wouldn't care even if they did.

If you could poll that same audience, they would probably say that 100,000 or more people died in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina (I don't need to tell you who they would blame). [The actual number was around 1,000 or less].

Barrack Hussein Obama (and Hillary and John Edwards and John Murtha and Rosie O'Donnell, etc.) knows that the typical Democrat campaign audience is insane. The audience needs a steady diet of additional insanity to keep them on the reservation. The Democrats need an energized, frenzied base that will be willing to burglarize Republican campaign headquarters, assault Republican candidates and fire weapons at Republican offices. They will not do this unless they believe that tens of thousands of people are dying in Kansas, New Orleans, etc. at the hands of the Bush/Cheney/Halliburton/Rove/Hitler killing machine.

While much of the nation may be laughing at Barrack Hussein Obama, the Democrat lunatic fringe remains revved up and ready for action. Mission accomplished.

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

The president [Clinton] indignantly denied the story that he'd auctioned off plots in Arlington National Cemetery to political donors. But I suspect that in the back of his mind he was asking himself: "Doggone! Why didn't I think of that during the '96 campaign?" There is sometimes a fine line between innocence and oversight.

The Arlington story should have been true, even if it wasn't. It was too perfect, too Clintonian. It seemed to round out the Clinton legend, in the same way as the apocryphal witticisms ascribed to Winston Churchill or the gaffes attributed to Yogi Berra.

Joe Sobran

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

Too many intellectuals act as if they are press agents for blacks -- who do not need press agents but who do need the truth. Wherever we are going, and wherever we want to go, we have to get there from where we are right now. Not where we wish we were or where we want others to think we are but where we are in fact.

Thomas Sowell

Quote of the day - Dick Morris

The sense of Hillary's inevitability as the Democratic nominee is clearly vanishing.

Dick Morris - 5-6-07

Quote of the day - Cicero

A man's own manner and character is what most becomes him.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Ellen Degeneres; ten year anniversary

I missed an interesting anniversary earlier this week. April 30th was the ten year anniversary of the over-hyped Ellen Degeneres coming-out episode, where she used her then failing ABC sitcom to announce her lesbianism to the world.

That particular event had been hyped during the entire 1996-1997 television season. As I recall, the radio ads and the TV promos for each episode hinted that this week might be THE week where Ellen might finally end the suspense and reveal whether she is a lesbian or not. By the time April rolled around, the suspense was over. The actual announcement in Time magazine and the special one hour, two part episode became an anti-climax. [I don't remember whether the ratings for that particular episode were good, although I suspect that they were.] In light of the past decade, the whole over-hyped event seems quaint now.








That particular sitcom had begun three years earlier on ABC with some success, but the ratings had gradually declined until this "controversy" temporarily spiked viewership. By the following season, the novelty had worn off, the ratings were worse than ever and the show was cancelled in the spring of 1998.

In 1998, Ellen herself commented that someday we would all wonder what had been the big deal in the first place. She made this commentary as part of a special episode where she and her cast portrayed or reenacted controversial moments from television history during previous decades. This comment has proven to be accurate, but only because the networks have beaten us to death with homosexuality since the mid-to-late 1990s.

I recall the April 12, 1997 episode of Saturday Night Live, in which Sheri Oteri played a lesbian character on "Weekend Update." This skit was SNL's contribution to the Ellen hype. The point of the skit was to ridicule NBC preemptively by accusing NBC of pandering to the lesbian angle. Oteri's character, Mickey the Dyke, used the skit to announce that NBC would copy ABC by featuring lesbians in every program, including sports, news, sitcoms, drama, etc. I am going purely from memory here, but I clearly recall Oteri gleefully announcing, "Lesbian! Lesbian! Lesbian!"

Mickey the Dyke


This skit was clearly intended as a joke and an insult to NBC, but it turned out to be even more prophetic than Ellen's prediction. Network programming would soon become an almost exclusive bastion of homosexuality.

• At the beginning of that same season (1996-1997), ABC's "Spin City" had debuted with a regular gay character.
• Also during that season, ABC's "Roseanne" converted one of its regular characters into a lesbian for the show's final season.
• In the fall of 1997, NBC debuted "Veronica's Closet", which featured a character that was constantly ridiculed for denying his own homosexuality.
• By fall 1998, NBC would premiere "Will and Grace."
• In the fall of 1998, a minor homosexual character would return to ABC's "NYPD Blue" and assume a much more prominent role.
• HBO's "Sex and the City" debuted in 1998, featuring numerous gay characters over the next six years and one major co-star that veered into lesbianism for a brief period.
• Around 2000 [I don't remember exactly when], a major character on NBC's "ER" would turn into a lesbian.
• In 2000, Showtime debuted "Queer as Folk," which lasted about five seasons.
• In 2000, CBS debuted "Survivor," in which a gay naked fat man played a prominent role. Future reality shows would also feature homosexuals in prominent roles.
• In 2001, HBO debuted "Six Feet Under," featuring a gay lead character.
• In the early part of this decade, a character on ABC's "Once and Again" appeared to be headed in the lesbian direction at the time the show was cancelled.
• Also during this decade, new characters on "NYPD Blue" and NBC's "Law and Order" would announce their homosexuality in plot twists that went nowhere, shortly before those characters would disappear.
• NBC's "Bravo" network debuted "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" in 2003.
• In 2003, Reno 911 debuted on Comedy Central, featuring a flamboyantly gay police lieutenant.
• Around 2004-2005, the Canadian series "Degrassi" began depicting homosexual affairs between and among high school students (some of which featured actors that were barely of legal age for the scenes in which they played).
• Numerous episodes of CW's "Veronica Mars" feature persecuted gay guest characters.
• I recall a few failed series during this time that featured gay main characters, but they survived too briefly for me to remember their names. They were cheap imitations of Will and Grace and did not earn decent ratings.
• In 2005, CBS debuted "Numb3rs", featuring a gay main character.
• The current CBS show "The Class" features at least one regular gay character.
• The current ABC series "Brothers and Sisters" features a gay main character and repeated exposure to his romantic life.

There are probably more examples that I have forgotten or never knew about. When I became aware of each of the above examples, I heard Cheri Oteri's voice in the back of my head exclaiming, "Lesbian! Lesbian! Lesbian!" [Reality is rapidly becoming indistinguishable from parody.]

These programs consume many hours of prime time programming, most of them on network television. I have not included movies or the self-outing of numerous celebrities over the past ten years. The cumulative effect of these Hollywood products has been gradually to ratchet up the homosexuality factor in our mass media. We have reached the point where it has become almost a prerequisite for a television show to include a homosexual character if it hopes to gain a slot in the primetime lineup.

The homosexual revolution is now so old that many of the homosexual shows from the 1990's or early part of this decade are now syndicated on weekends or late at night. It is entirely possible that not a day goes by without a homosexual television program being aired somewhere on American television. But it is rare that network television programs show people in church. Do homosexuals, in fact, outnumber churchgoers? The MSM/DNC would have us believe so.

Is Ellen Degeneres responsible for the homosexual revolution in television? Despite the timing of her self-outing and the above programs, I believe the answer is no. The revolution was coming anyway. Ellen Degeneres simply jumped in front like the rooster announcing the sunrise. She milked her own outing for a year to shore up ratings for a failing show. The MSM/DNC was happy to accomodate her by fueling the publicity and speculation. That very publicity throughout 1996-1997 then paved the way for the deluge which has rained homosexuality upon the rest of us for the past ten years.

This part is educated speculation, but I cannot believe that the homosexual revolution in television happened because of one program. Other programs, like "Friends" and "Melrose Place", had dabbled in homosexuality in the early to mid-1990's. I believe that twenty five years after the "Rural purge" and other such milestones, television was ready for yet another of its many mini-revolutions. In this case, homosexuals had been gravitating to Hollywood for generations. They had toiled away on shows that they hated. They worked in silence. They wrote and produced shows about puppies, children, families and other non-gay subjects. They suffered in silence. But at a certain point, they had risen in the industry and amassed enough people and power that they could impose their own agenda.

The ten year gay parade that has graced our television sets did not result from gray haired TV executives suddenly becoming "tolerant" of the poor oppressed homosexuals. It has resulted, instead, from the homosexuals gradually seizing positions of authority in Hollywood to the point where all other points of view are suppressed. We are living under a virtual mass media homosexual dictatorship. In other words, we didn't give them network television. They took it.

If we want network television to reflect the fact that people, in fact, attend church in this country, we must do what the homosexuals have done. We must travel to Hollywood. We must work on programs we hate. We must bide our time. We must never forget that Hollywood hates us, America and everything Christian. We must develop our own persecution complex similar to that of the homosexuals. [Although in our case we have good reason for such a complex.] We must long for the day when we can present a Christian program that does not ridicule the faithful.

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update - Mark Steyn reprints a column from 10 years ago.

I have updated the program list above.

Quote of the day - Milton Friedman

The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.

Milton Friedman

It pays to comment; Sweet Spirits of Ammonia

It pays to leave comments on others' blogs. I received a comment from the owner of "Sweet Spirits of Ammonia" yesterday. I hadn't thought about that blog in quite a while, but the comment caused me to check it out. They have good articles about rules for Moslems in space and cartoons about the Democrats' surrender strategy. The blog is worth checking out and I am glad they reminded me it was there.

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."

C. S. Lewis

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

In fairness to (John) Edwards, asking a trial lawyer to name his favorite moral leader is like asking the president of Iran to name his favorite Jew. (Answer: George Soros.)

Ann Coulter - 5-2-07

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

Gay marriage is not enough. We won't have
*true* equality until there are gay shotgun weddings.

Joe Sobran

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

I am so old that I can remember a Democrat, at his inauguration as President, say of our enemies: "We dare not tempt them with weakness."

Thomas Sowell - May 1, 2007