Nuke-Free Is Not the Way to Be

As can be expected of any (and every) president, Obama has a long list of promises that he failed to keep.  Party politics has a lot to do with that, as well as the fact that not a single politician on the national stage has the a average American's interest at heart.  But there is at least one campaign goal that I am glad to see Obama has been unable to fulfill: a nuke-free world.

A recent article from The Atlantic describes some of the obstacles preventing Obama from making serious progress towards a nuclear-free world.  Thank God.

Don't get me wrong, a world without nukes is a wonderful thing to strive towards.  So is a world without crime.  Good luck.  Just take a look at the countries that have developed or are developing nuclear weapons: USA, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, Iran, and Syria.  The only country on that list that could give up nuclear weapons without fear of being are those cheese-eating surrender monkeys in France.  Do you really think Israel is ever going to both believe that Iran will destroy its weapons program and then destroy its own?  How about India and Pakistan?  And don't get me started on those commies in Russia and China.  And we certainly can't afford to get rid of ours without knowing for sure no one else has any.

The more you think about it, the less sense it makes for America to give up its nuclear arsenal.  What if Al-Qaeda regains political control in a country with nuclear capabilities?  Suddenly, Obama's motives seem rather suspect.  Now I know why.

Obama's plan is more than just another empty campaign promise or a silly fantasy.  I've come to the realization that Obama wants the US to be defenseless against nuclear attack.  Before asking why, we need to address a more important question: Who is behind this new threat?  The first suspect when it comes to possible nuclear war is, of course, Russia.  But it seems they are pawns in this international plot as well: in April 2010, Russia signed a treaty with the US that will reduce the number of each country's nuclear missile launchers by half.  Perhaps its China, the new Russia?  That also seems unlikely, given that they are already going to surpass the US on the world stage.  Plus, they'll need somebody to work their minimum-wage jobs.  As far as terrorists go, I highly doubt that they are organized and sophisticated enough to wield the kind of political power it would take to manipulate the world's superpowers.

So who could it be?  What nation would want to see the US fall under nuclear winter?

Japan.

Think about it.  The same country that produced the samurai isn't going to "forgive and forget" the killing of almost 250,000 people. Sensing that I was on to something, I looked further into the matter.  It seems Japan planted the seeds for America's current economic situation decades ago, when their auto industry took off in the 1960s.  It wasn't just competition in a free market that turned Detroit into a ghost town and signaled the decline of America's financial status.  The whole thing was engineered by Japanese leaders in response to the dropping of nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war.

Here's how the plan has gone along so far.  With ninja-like patience, they rebuilt their country and worked to establish themselves as the leader of the auto industry, knowing how devastating that would be to the American economy years later.

Their next step was to gain the world's trust by pretending that, as victims of the horror of nuclear attack, they would never develop nuclear weapons.  Not only that, but the constitution that Japan adopted in 1947 explicitly forbids the nation from declaring war.  And no one found that hard to believe?  It's not like Switzerland, who hasn't been in a war for almost 200 years; the Japanese were in some serious shit relatively recently and are located in a politically volatile region of the world.  Who the hell knows what North Korea is up to?  Or how strongly China will support Kim Jong-Il?  It's clear that Japan can't take that article of their constitution seriously.  It must be a ruse.

Now that Japan has the world's trust and America is in the Next Depression, the Japanese are secretly working with Obama to rid the US of its nukes and, therefore, its ability to deter nuclear attack.  Some might be inclined to give Obama the benefit of the doubt in this regard, since a nuclear-free world is a noble goal, one which the Japanese may be taking advantage of.  Don't be fooled.  The following picture of Obama and the Emperor of Japan shows just how deep inside Japan's pocket Obama really is.

No red-white-and-blue-blooded American patriot would ever bow that low to a foreigner!  And what kind of self-respecting world leader would show such submissiveness?  It's clear, then, that Obama wants to see America stripped of its most powerful weapon so that Japan can have its revenge.

Now we can get to motive.  Actually, it's not that important.  He lived in southeast Asia in the '70s; he was probably brainwashed into a sleeper cell or something.  The important thing is to act now!  This plan has been set in motion decades ago and is going to be extremely difficult to stop.  We need to let the government know that We Want our Nukes!

Niggardly

Yes, that's how it's pronounced.  But it has nothing to do with a racial slur.  The word, possibly derived from an Old Norse word that meant "to fuss over small details, means "stingy."  It is not related to "nigger", which comes from "negro", the Spanish word for black which itself is derived from Latin.


Over the years, the use of "niggardly" has many times been construed as a racist remark because the two words sound so similar.  For example, Wikipedia has an article about a white aide to a black mayor of D.C. who resigned after colleagues complained about his using the word.  Then-chairman of the NAACP came to his defense, saying, " "You hate to think you have to censor your language to meet other people's lack of understanding.  David Howard should not have quit. Mayor Williams should bring him back — and order dictionaries issued to all staff who need them."


This incident, and several others like it, highlight an issue that seems to bother a lot of people nowadays: has political correctness gone too far?  Imagine if the word "despicable" was no longer acceptable because it has "spic" in the middle of it.  Or "menu" was no longer used because it was perceived as sexist.  Sensitivity isn't inherently bad, but it can get out of hand.  


More importantly, this so-called controversy demonstrates just how beneficial decent education can be to society.  No one should have their career marred by someone else's ignorance.  But then again, an argument can be made for not using the word out of politeness if you are unsure how it will be taken, but I wouldn't fault anyone for using "niggardly" whenever it is appropriate.  In fact, I would love to see the word become more commonly used.  As a student of the English language, it sucks to see a word fall out of use because it sounds like a racial slur that it is not related to.  Unfortunately, there would be countless immature morons who use the word solely because it sounds so insulting.


I'm not really sure what the point of this post is.  It's been awhile since I've put anything up.  I suppose I just find this issue interesting because I find linguistics, in general, interesting.  I guess the moral here is to remember what happens when you assume.  And go read a book!