Terry Paulson
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Ross Perot’s plain-speaking candor fits the times: “The deficit is like the guy that finds a rattlesnake in his pants. He knows he's got to shoot it, but he doesn't want to hit anything important.” No one’s shooting yet, but they sure know how to throw more of our money around! Money’s the talk of the town in Washington, and all that money seems to be saying is “Good-bye!”
The “final” bailout plan is yet to be fully dissected or passed, but Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Fred Bernanke deserve kudos for trying to do something to get ahead of the problem! Unfortunately, ratcheting up the fear of a pending economic calamity to get action required politicians to produce some “cure” or risk creating an even greater economic panic! Whether their rescue plan will stabilize the market and provide needed loan capital, history will be the judge, but America will find a way to bounce back. But much can be learned from what helped create this crisis that should have a bearing on your presidential vote.
Democrats and liberal pundits are blaming the free market, the Fed’s easy money policy, deregulation, greed, and, of course, President Bush. Certainly, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s monetary policy that has aggressively lowered interest rates helped drive down the value of the dollar and make loans overly attractive at unheard of rates. Certainly, unscrupulous financial institutions are also to blame for creating unsound and complex investment vehicles that fueled speculation and generated excessive profits without ever questioning the investments or the loans they created.
The administration is also not blameless, but an Opinion Journal column by Charles Calomiris and Peter Wallison documents the role of Congress in creating the current credit crisis. Accounting scandals at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac surfaced as early as 2003 when Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office economists found that, despite their subsidized borrowing rates, Fannie and Freddie had not significantly reduced mortgage interest rates. Instead of making mortgages cheaper for borrowers, they were making excessive profits and thus creating greater risks for the taxpayers, the economy, and mortgage payment-strapped homeowners.
In response to their lapses, Fannie and Freddie used a commitment to increase financing for "affordable housing" to curry Democratic support. Rep. Barney Frank openly admitted at a committee hearing on GSE reform in 2003: "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role in helping to make housing more affordable . . . a mission that this Congress has given them in return for some of the arrangements which are of some benefit to them…."
Beginning in 2004, their portfolios of subprime and Alt-A loans and securities began to grow. Fannie and Freddie became their largest buyers between 2004 and 2007, with total GSE exposure eventually exceeding $1 trillion. In doing so, they stimulated the growth of the subpar mortgage market and magnified the costs of its eventual collapse.
When irregularities continued to surface, McCain and others warned of the coming mortgage crisis. In 2005, McCain spoke in favor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 from the floor of the Senate: "For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…." McCain pointed to a $10.6 billion accounting scandal at Fannie Mae where their quarterly reports of profit growth were "illusions deliberately and systematically created" by the company's senior management. McCain called for reform.
A recent Glenn Beck article chronicles the repeated calls for reform by President Bush and his administration since 2001. They not only warned of the systemic consequences of a Fannie and Freddie failure but suggested thoughtful plans to reduce the risk. His warnings went unheeded and his attempts to reform were blocked by Democratic legislative maneuvering.
What was our champion of change and hope doing about the problem? Nothing! Records from the Federal Election Commission reveal a possible reason for Obama’s silence. In his three complete years in the Senate, he’s the second largest recipient of Freddie-and--Fannie-connected campaign contributions. It took Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, eleven years to receive $165,400 in contributions from GSE PACs and individuals. Obama received $126,349 in just three years.
WorldNetDaily’s Jerome R. Corsi reported on Obama advisors with strong Fannie Mae connections. James Johnson, earning millions as Fannie Mae CEO from 1991 to 1998, was appointed to head Obama's vice presidential selection committee until alleged questionable real estate loans from Countrywide Financial forced him to step down. Obama housing advisor, Franklin Raines, earned $90 million as Fannie Mae CEO from 1999 to 2004.
Free market capitalism didn’t create this crisis. The Democrats’ "progressive" social policies helped stifle free market checks and limit appropriate regulatory oversight. The same politicians who today decry the lack of intervention to stop past abuses were the ones who blocked the legislative efforts that might have stopped them. While McCain is leading, Obama’s watching. Barack’s a great talker, but he’s remained inactive when he should have been part of the solution.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Obama and the Reagan Doctrine
Dinesh D'Souza
Monday, September 29, 2008
In his debate with John McCain, Barack Obama's attempted to portray the Bush administration as a complete failure both in domestic and foreign policy. This argument, however, is running into one big problem: Bush's Iraq policy appears to be succeeding.
How embarrassing! Well, at least the Democrats can try to make sure that no one finds out about this. Obama attempted to change the subject by saying that Afghanistan, not Iraq, is the central front of the war on terror. But Afghanistan was merely the launching pad for 9/11. The terrorists went to Afghanistan because they got rent-free terrorist training facilities. None of the hijackers or their planners actually came from Afghanistan. Every single one of them was from the Middle East, mostly Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Moreover, Afghanistan has only minor strategic significance compared to Iraq. Iraq’s neighbors include Turkey, Jordan, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Islamic radicals, who have controlled Iran for a generation, fully understand the importance of winning a second major state in the Middle East. With Iran and Iraq in their control, they can then turn their sights to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. No wonder Bin Laden and his associates have declared Iraq the central front of the war on terror, the launching pad for a new world war. Obama, by contrast, still regards the Taliban as the vanguard of global jihad. This shows Obama as being both naïve and out of date.
During his foreign trip a few weeks ago, Obama tried to take advantage of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's statement that America should work out a withdrawal plan for Iraq. Obama triumphantly declared that now is the time for Iraqis to work out their own destiny. Obama failed to mention, however, that if he had been president, Iraq would still be ruled by Saddam Hussein. The only destiny that Obama would have consigned Iraq to is oppression, torture, and mass graves.
To understand what is going on in Iraq, we must distinguish between two approaches: the Bush doctrine and the Reagan doctrine. Unlike the Bush doctrine--which seemed to require invasion and occupation--the Reagan doctrine was one of assisted non-intervention. Reagan believed that people in foreign countries should fight for their own freedom. We do not fight for them. But if they are willing to fight, we are willing to help. And so in Afghanistan, in Nicaragua, in Angola and to some extent in Ethiopia, Reagan supported rebels who sought liberation from Marxist tyranny. For intance, Reagan supplied Stinger missiles to the Afghani mujaheedin who were fighting to repel the Soviet invasion of that country. Reagan did not, however, send large numbers of American troops to Afghanistan.
Now in Bush's defense it should be said that the Reagan doctrine could not have worked in Iraq. Unlike in Afghanistan, which the mujaheedin turned into a Soviet "bleeding wound," there was no Iraqi resistance that could substantially threaten Saddam Hussein. Bush's choice was either for America to get rid of Hussein, or to leave Hussein in power. But from the beginning the administration understood that, even in Iraq, over time the Bush doctrine must metamorphose into the Reagan doctrine.
It has taken longer than expected. But that's because Saddam's Baathist minority--let's call them the Saddamites--ran not only the government but the entire society. So it has been quite a process to train a Shia elected government to learn to govern a nation in which they were victimized for a quarter century. Slowly, however, the Iraqis have been rising to the task, assisted by able U.S. forces under the competent leadership of General Petraeus.
So now, finally, Iraqis are getting to the position where they can defend their own country and fight for their own freedom. This is what "success" means in Iraq: not the end of the insurgency, or the end of terrorism, but a situation in which Iraqis take the helm and America moves into a supporting role. Of course America is going to get out of Iraq. The only question is whether we will leave recklessly, precipitously, with the risk of escalating violence and chaos and perhaps even a return of the Saddamites. This seems to be the approach the Obama Democrats want. The other option is to leave cautiously, deliberately, in a way that leaves Iraq a self-governing society, the only pro-American Muslim democracy in the Middle East.
Monday, September 29, 2008
In his debate with John McCain, Barack Obama's attempted to portray the Bush administration as a complete failure both in domestic and foreign policy. This argument, however, is running into one big problem: Bush's Iraq policy appears to be succeeding.
How embarrassing! Well, at least the Democrats can try to make sure that no one finds out about this. Obama attempted to change the subject by saying that Afghanistan, not Iraq, is the central front of the war on terror. But Afghanistan was merely the launching pad for 9/11. The terrorists went to Afghanistan because they got rent-free terrorist training facilities. None of the hijackers or their planners actually came from Afghanistan. Every single one of them was from the Middle East, mostly Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Moreover, Afghanistan has only minor strategic significance compared to Iraq. Iraq’s neighbors include Turkey, Jordan, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Islamic radicals, who have controlled Iran for a generation, fully understand the importance of winning a second major state in the Middle East. With Iran and Iraq in their control, they can then turn their sights to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. No wonder Bin Laden and his associates have declared Iraq the central front of the war on terror, the launching pad for a new world war. Obama, by contrast, still regards the Taliban as the vanguard of global jihad. This shows Obama as being both naïve and out of date.
During his foreign trip a few weeks ago, Obama tried to take advantage of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's statement that America should work out a withdrawal plan for Iraq. Obama triumphantly declared that now is the time for Iraqis to work out their own destiny. Obama failed to mention, however, that if he had been president, Iraq would still be ruled by Saddam Hussein. The only destiny that Obama would have consigned Iraq to is oppression, torture, and mass graves.
To understand what is going on in Iraq, we must distinguish between two approaches: the Bush doctrine and the Reagan doctrine. Unlike the Bush doctrine--which seemed to require invasion and occupation--the Reagan doctrine was one of assisted non-intervention. Reagan believed that people in foreign countries should fight for their own freedom. We do not fight for them. But if they are willing to fight, we are willing to help. And so in Afghanistan, in Nicaragua, in Angola and to some extent in Ethiopia, Reagan supported rebels who sought liberation from Marxist tyranny. For intance, Reagan supplied Stinger missiles to the Afghani mujaheedin who were fighting to repel the Soviet invasion of that country. Reagan did not, however, send large numbers of American troops to Afghanistan.
Now in Bush's defense it should be said that the Reagan doctrine could not have worked in Iraq. Unlike in Afghanistan, which the mujaheedin turned into a Soviet "bleeding wound," there was no Iraqi resistance that could substantially threaten Saddam Hussein. Bush's choice was either for America to get rid of Hussein, or to leave Hussein in power. But from the beginning the administration understood that, even in Iraq, over time the Bush doctrine must metamorphose into the Reagan doctrine.
It has taken longer than expected. But that's because Saddam's Baathist minority--let's call them the Saddamites--ran not only the government but the entire society. So it has been quite a process to train a Shia elected government to learn to govern a nation in which they were victimized for a quarter century. Slowly, however, the Iraqis have been rising to the task, assisted by able U.S. forces under the competent leadership of General Petraeus.
So now, finally, Iraqis are getting to the position where they can defend their own country and fight for their own freedom. This is what "success" means in Iraq: not the end of the insurgency, or the end of terrorism, but a situation in which Iraqis take the helm and America moves into a supporting role. Of course America is going to get out of Iraq. The only question is whether we will leave recklessly, precipitously, with the risk of escalating violence and chaos and perhaps even a return of the Saddamites. This seems to be the approach the Obama Democrats want. The other option is to leave cautiously, deliberately, in a way that leaves Iraq a self-governing society, the only pro-American Muslim democracy in the Middle East.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
What Conservatism Isn't
John Hawkins
Friday, September 26, 2008
If you closely follow politics, one thing you'll learn is that liberals often go to great lengths to try to hide what they really believe from the public while conservatives inevitably seem to be trying to correct some misperception that has been spread about them.
So, as a creature of the Right and as someone who knows other conservatives well, I'd like to do something a little out of the ordinary. I'd like to take the time to explain what we conservatives are NOT so that people who aren't that familiar with conservatism can know when they're being fed a plateful of baloney about what we believe.
Conservatives don't dislike minorities: Few things outrage conservatives more than the fact that liberals are forever accusing us of hating this or that group for the flimsiest of reasons. Yes, there are a few racist conservatives, just like there are racist liberals and moderates. However, judging by the number of race-based attacks on minority conservatives by the Left, the Right as a whole is considerably less racist than our brethren on the Left.
Conservatives don't want women kept barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen: Conservatives have much more respect for stay-at-home mothers than the Left does and therefore, we don't look down our noses at women who want to be at home with the kids while their husband works.
For people who say that means conservatives just want women to be subservient to men, I have two words for you: Sarah Palin. She's a working mother shooting for the second most powerful position in the land. Conservatives love her and liberals hate her in large part for the exact same reason: she's a living, breathing stereotype killer.
Conservatives aren't anti-science: One of the great ironies of modern life is that liberals, a group that regularly tries to whip up scientifically unjustifiable hysteria for political gain, has consistently tried to brand conservatives as being "anti-science."
Have you ever noticed how that plays out in say, the global warming debate? On the Right, you have people constantly quoting actual studies and scientists as they make an argument while on the Left, they're quoting Al Gore and telling you sketchy stories about how the polar bears are all going to die if we don't do something right this second! Honestly, which side sounds like it's more interested in actual scientific facts as opposed to political propaganda masquerading as science?
"Conservative" and "Republican" aren't necessarily the same thing: Most conservatives are Republicans, but much to the chagrin of the Right, far too many Republicans, even ones claiming to be conservative, don't act in a conservative fashion.
For example, during his time in office, George Bush has been ferociously criticized by conservatives for out-of-control spending, expansions of government power, and his stand on illegal immigration. That's not to say that conservatives don't agree with the Republican Party on most issues -- because we do -- but you should never forget that "conservative" and "Republican" are most definitely two different things.
Conservatives aren't theocrats: People who aren't Christians -- or alternately are believers, but don't take their faith seriously -- sometimes accuse conservatives of wanting to disregard the Constitution in order to implement a theocracy.
Never, in my entire career as a writer, have I seen a prominent conservative advocate such a thing and never, in my entire life, have I met a single conservative who believes in doing such a thing. This idea has slightly less resonance on the Right than making Nancy Pelosi House Majority Leader for life.
Conservatives rig the elections: This is a theme that has been taken up by the Left after their chosen candidates went down in flames during the last two presidential elections. However, if conservatives are rigging elections, why in the world did we allow the Democrats to take over Congress in 2006?
Moreover, if you look at cases of election malfeasance where someone is actually prosecuted for doing something wrong as opposed to imaginary cases where something "must" be going on because the wrong candidate lost, you'll find that the Left is much more likely to engage in election fraud than the Right.
Conservatives don't want to pollute the environment: Here's a little secret you will seldom hear from environmental groups: the environment is in pretty good shape here in the United States. We don't have Bejing-like pollution in the air, uninhabitable radioactive wastelands like the Ukraine, and people regularly drinking contaminated well water like you'll find in India.
This is where the Left and Right differ. Conservatives are concerned about clean water, clean air, and a clean environment while the left-wing environmental groups have become increasingly hysterical over trivia and dubious problems, like global warming, in order to keep their fundraising going. So. if you're interested in environmental issues that might actually have some measurable impact on your life and your health, the Right is just as concerned as the Left about the environment.
Conservatives aren't in the pocket of the rich: When it comes to the rich, the biggest difference between the Left and the Right is that conservatives don't resent successful people for their success. Add to that a healthy respect for capitalism that isn't present on the Left and you get a generally favorable attitude towards business and successful people.
That being said, it is the Right, not the Left that is the greatest foe of corporate welfare and businesses that profit from illegal immigration. That's one of the biggest reasons why, despite what you'd expect, big business is much friendlier to the Left than you'd think given their socialistic attitudes.
Friday, September 26, 2008
If you closely follow politics, one thing you'll learn is that liberals often go to great lengths to try to hide what they really believe from the public while conservatives inevitably seem to be trying to correct some misperception that has been spread about them.
So, as a creature of the Right and as someone who knows other conservatives well, I'd like to do something a little out of the ordinary. I'd like to take the time to explain what we conservatives are NOT so that people who aren't that familiar with conservatism can know when they're being fed a plateful of baloney about what we believe.
Conservatives don't dislike minorities: Few things outrage conservatives more than the fact that liberals are forever accusing us of hating this or that group for the flimsiest of reasons. Yes, there are a few racist conservatives, just like there are racist liberals and moderates. However, judging by the number of race-based attacks on minority conservatives by the Left, the Right as a whole is considerably less racist than our brethren on the Left.
Conservatives don't want women kept barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen: Conservatives have much more respect for stay-at-home mothers than the Left does and therefore, we don't look down our noses at women who want to be at home with the kids while their husband works.
For people who say that means conservatives just want women to be subservient to men, I have two words for you: Sarah Palin. She's a working mother shooting for the second most powerful position in the land. Conservatives love her and liberals hate her in large part for the exact same reason: she's a living, breathing stereotype killer.
Conservatives aren't anti-science: One of the great ironies of modern life is that liberals, a group that regularly tries to whip up scientifically unjustifiable hysteria for political gain, has consistently tried to brand conservatives as being "anti-science."
Have you ever noticed how that plays out in say, the global warming debate? On the Right, you have people constantly quoting actual studies and scientists as they make an argument while on the Left, they're quoting Al Gore and telling you sketchy stories about how the polar bears are all going to die if we don't do something right this second! Honestly, which side sounds like it's more interested in actual scientific facts as opposed to political propaganda masquerading as science?
"Conservative" and "Republican" aren't necessarily the same thing: Most conservatives are Republicans, but much to the chagrin of the Right, far too many Republicans, even ones claiming to be conservative, don't act in a conservative fashion.
For example, during his time in office, George Bush has been ferociously criticized by conservatives for out-of-control spending, expansions of government power, and his stand on illegal immigration. That's not to say that conservatives don't agree with the Republican Party on most issues -- because we do -- but you should never forget that "conservative" and "Republican" are most definitely two different things.
Conservatives aren't theocrats: People who aren't Christians -- or alternately are believers, but don't take their faith seriously -- sometimes accuse conservatives of wanting to disregard the Constitution in order to implement a theocracy.
Never, in my entire career as a writer, have I seen a prominent conservative advocate such a thing and never, in my entire life, have I met a single conservative who believes in doing such a thing. This idea has slightly less resonance on the Right than making Nancy Pelosi House Majority Leader for life.
Conservatives rig the elections: This is a theme that has been taken up by the Left after their chosen candidates went down in flames during the last two presidential elections. However, if conservatives are rigging elections, why in the world did we allow the Democrats to take over Congress in 2006?
Moreover, if you look at cases of election malfeasance where someone is actually prosecuted for doing something wrong as opposed to imaginary cases where something "must" be going on because the wrong candidate lost, you'll find that the Left is much more likely to engage in election fraud than the Right.
Conservatives don't want to pollute the environment: Here's a little secret you will seldom hear from environmental groups: the environment is in pretty good shape here in the United States. We don't have Bejing-like pollution in the air, uninhabitable radioactive wastelands like the Ukraine, and people regularly drinking contaminated well water like you'll find in India.
This is where the Left and Right differ. Conservatives are concerned about clean water, clean air, and a clean environment while the left-wing environmental groups have become increasingly hysterical over trivia and dubious problems, like global warming, in order to keep their fundraising going. So. if you're interested in environmental issues that might actually have some measurable impact on your life and your health, the Right is just as concerned as the Left about the environment.
Conservatives aren't in the pocket of the rich: When it comes to the rich, the biggest difference between the Left and the Right is that conservatives don't resent successful people for their success. Add to that a healthy respect for capitalism that isn't present on the Left and you get a generally favorable attitude towards business and successful people.
That being said, it is the Right, not the Left that is the greatest foe of corporate welfare and businesses that profit from illegal immigration. That's one of the biggest reasons why, despite what you'd expect, big business is much friendlier to the Left than you'd think given their socialistic attitudes.
America Second
Obama’s world vision ought to scare the pants off Americans from diapers to Depends.
By Anne Bayefsky
Friday, September 26,2008
The foreign-policy differences between the two presidential candidates could not be more stark. And the chasm does not center on Iraq. It is about what ‘America first’ really means. Not hegemony. Not a disinterest in cooperation or insensitivity to regional differences. But believing in a set of values rooted in human dignity and respect — and being genuinely prepared to defend those values against our real enemies. Only one candidate has even committed to that task.
John Kerry told George Bush he would decide foreign policy on the basis of a global test — take the measure of our allies’ proclivities and then decide what to do. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have a similar yardstick — the United Nations. The U.N. — the god of multilateralism, that supposed moral high ground where 192 nations talk, adopt resolutions, have conferences and allegedly spare us from war. Obama, the lightweight on foreign policy, got off to a bad start when it came to matters of state. His “tiny” Iran speech brought Joe Biden onto the ticket to do the heavy-lifting on the presidential function of defining interactions with other governments. When we wonder what a President Obama might do at 3:00 A.M., Sen. Biden answers the call.
The number one issue in American foreign policy today is Iran and the imminent threat that the leading state sponsor of terrorism will acquire nuclear arms. Getting the full measure of a President Obama, requires getting the measure of our adversary. The man who hopes to soon have his finger on the nuclear trigger, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told the United Nations General Assembly this week:
How would Obama/Biden tackle the job of shutting down the genocidal plans of the Iranian President and saving the free world from a nuclear holocaust?
The world vision of Obama/Biden has the following characteristics — that ought to scare the pants off Americans from diapers to Depends:
An inability to recognize the enemy when it stares them in the face. “When the Senate votes to designate a large part of Iran's military a “terrorist” organization... the main result is to increase tensions with Iran.” (Joe Biden, December 6, 2007)
The lack of straight talk about American values and the assault which has been launched upon them. “I don’t believe in a clash of civilizations.” (Joe Biden, March 10, 2005) Perhaps he should attend the UN Human Rights Council and watch the battle raging over defamation of religion versus freedom of expression and women’s rights versus cultural particularities?
Prioritizing optics over substance. “The way we position ourselves, we’re made to look like the bad guys.” (Joe Biden, July 9, 2008) News flash: America is made to look like the bad guy for doing anything at all — that’s the burden of having power and using it.
Treading lightly on Russia. “We need…Russia’s help on Iran… Pushing too hard, too fast on democracy risks alienating governments whose help we need.” (Joe Biden, March 10, 2005) First Georgia. Next?
Naiveté about Russian and Chinese intentions. “Direct U.S. engagement with Iran is something that the European Union, Russia, and China have told me they would welcome. In exchange, we should insist on firm commitments from those governments to impose serious sanctions.” (July 9, 2008) The Russians and the Chinese have made it clear for years that they will not allow serious sanctions against Iran to be adopted by the Security Council.
Showcasing America as weak and unwilling to use force. “The Folly of War: War with Iran is not just a bad option. It would be a disaster …Even talk of war is counter-productive to our interests.” (Joe Biden, December 6, 2007)
Putting the feelings of mobs and despots above the interests of the United States and its democratic allies. “Air strikes can set back Iran's nuclear program, but … imagine the consequences beyond Iran …enraged Muslim populations would make it much harder for moderate leaders to cooperate with us ...” (Joe Biden, December 6, 2007)
Grossly underestimating the enemy. “My concern is not that a nuclear Iran some day would be moved by messianic fervor to use a nuclear weapon…My worry is that the fear of a nuclear Iran could spark an arms race in the Middle East…” (Joe Biden, December 6, 2007)
Turning diplomacy into an instrument of self-destruction, where cheap talk gives the enemy legitimacy and time. “In 2005, while the Bush Administration was shunning Iran's reformist President [Khatami], I held the highest-level meeting in 25 years between any U.S. and Iranian official when I met with Iran's foreign minister.” (Joe Biden, December 6, 2007) Here is what his friend Khatami — the man in charge of nurturing Iran’s nuclear weapons program for eight years until 2005 — had to say in November 2000: “As the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, I wish to underline … we take pride in the heroic resistance of the children of the Muslim and Arab Ummah against suppression and bullying of the terrorist racist Zionist regime.”
No pre-conditions for talks with Iran and hand the enemy the tools he needs to run out the clock. “First, let’s end this false argument about “pre-conditions.” Senator Obama is right that the United States should be willing to engage Iran on its nuclear program without insisting that Iran first freeze the program.” (Joe Biden, May 20, 2008)
A long-time love affair with the United Nations. “The United States and other countries should commit military forces to the exclusive use by the United Nations’ Security Council.” (Joe Biden as reported October 29, 1992)
President Obama, and his authority figure on foreign policy, will sit down to chat with genocidal antisemites, shelve the use of force, pander to the rabble-rousers, embrace the United Nations, avoid confrontation with the enemies of Israel and genuine religious pluralism — and permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
That’s America second.
By Anne Bayefsky
Friday, September 26,2008
The foreign-policy differences between the two presidential candidates could not be more stark. And the chasm does not center on Iraq. It is about what ‘America first’ really means. Not hegemony. Not a disinterest in cooperation or insensitivity to regional differences. But believing in a set of values rooted in human dignity and respect — and being genuinely prepared to defend those values against our real enemies. Only one candidate has even committed to that task.
John Kerry told George Bush he would decide foreign policy on the basis of a global test — take the measure of our allies’ proclivities and then decide what to do. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have a similar yardstick — the United Nations. The U.N. — the god of multilateralism, that supposed moral high ground where 192 nations talk, adopt resolutions, have conferences and allegedly spare us from war. Obama, the lightweight on foreign policy, got off to a bad start when it came to matters of state. His “tiny” Iran speech brought Joe Biden onto the ticket to do the heavy-lifting on the presidential function of defining interactions with other governments. When we wonder what a President Obama might do at 3:00 A.M., Sen. Biden answers the call.
The number one issue in American foreign policy today is Iran and the imminent threat that the leading state sponsor of terrorism will acquire nuclear arms. Getting the full measure of a President Obama, requires getting the measure of our adversary. The man who hopes to soon have his finger on the nuclear trigger, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told the United Nations General Assembly this week:
The dignity, integrity and rights of the European and American people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the U.S. in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner.Ahmadinejad’s grotesque antisemitism and subsequent call for Israel’s “collapse” were met by a round of applause from the assembled audience — the United States and Israel were absent — and a big hug from the President of the General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann.
How would Obama/Biden tackle the job of shutting down the genocidal plans of the Iranian President and saving the free world from a nuclear holocaust?
The world vision of Obama/Biden has the following characteristics — that ought to scare the pants off Americans from diapers to Depends:
An inability to recognize the enemy when it stares them in the face. “When the Senate votes to designate a large part of Iran's military a “terrorist” organization... the main result is to increase tensions with Iran.” (Joe Biden, December 6, 2007)
The lack of straight talk about American values and the assault which has been launched upon them. “I don’t believe in a clash of civilizations.” (Joe Biden, March 10, 2005) Perhaps he should attend the UN Human Rights Council and watch the battle raging over defamation of religion versus freedom of expression and women’s rights versus cultural particularities?
Prioritizing optics over substance. “The way we position ourselves, we’re made to look like the bad guys.” (Joe Biden, July 9, 2008) News flash: America is made to look like the bad guy for doing anything at all — that’s the burden of having power and using it.
Treading lightly on Russia. “We need…Russia’s help on Iran… Pushing too hard, too fast on democracy risks alienating governments whose help we need.” (Joe Biden, March 10, 2005) First Georgia. Next?
Naiveté about Russian and Chinese intentions. “Direct U.S. engagement with Iran is something that the European Union, Russia, and China have told me they would welcome. In exchange, we should insist on firm commitments from those governments to impose serious sanctions.” (July 9, 2008) The Russians and the Chinese have made it clear for years that they will not allow serious sanctions against Iran to be adopted by the Security Council.
Showcasing America as weak and unwilling to use force. “The Folly of War: War with Iran is not just a bad option. It would be a disaster …Even talk of war is counter-productive to our interests.” (Joe Biden, December 6, 2007)
Putting the feelings of mobs and despots above the interests of the United States and its democratic allies. “Air strikes can set back Iran's nuclear program, but … imagine the consequences beyond Iran …enraged Muslim populations would make it much harder for moderate leaders to cooperate with us ...” (Joe Biden, December 6, 2007)
Grossly underestimating the enemy. “My concern is not that a nuclear Iran some day would be moved by messianic fervor to use a nuclear weapon…My worry is that the fear of a nuclear Iran could spark an arms race in the Middle East…” (Joe Biden, December 6, 2007)
Turning diplomacy into an instrument of self-destruction, where cheap talk gives the enemy legitimacy and time. “In 2005, while the Bush Administration was shunning Iran's reformist President [Khatami], I held the highest-level meeting in 25 years between any U.S. and Iranian official when I met with Iran's foreign minister.” (Joe Biden, December 6, 2007) Here is what his friend Khatami — the man in charge of nurturing Iran’s nuclear weapons program for eight years until 2005 — had to say in November 2000: “As the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, I wish to underline … we take pride in the heroic resistance of the children of the Muslim and Arab Ummah against suppression and bullying of the terrorist racist Zionist regime.”
No pre-conditions for talks with Iran and hand the enemy the tools he needs to run out the clock. “First, let’s end this false argument about “pre-conditions.” Senator Obama is right that the United States should be willing to engage Iran on its nuclear program without insisting that Iran first freeze the program.” (Joe Biden, May 20, 2008)
A long-time love affair with the United Nations. “The United States and other countries should commit military forces to the exclusive use by the United Nations’ Security Council.” (Joe Biden as reported October 29, 1992)
President Obama, and his authority figure on foreign policy, will sit down to chat with genocidal antisemites, shelve the use of force, pander to the rabble-rousers, embrace the United Nations, avoid confrontation with the enemies of Israel and genuine religious pluralism — and permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
That’s America second.
Liberalism is an Addiction
Burt Prelutsky
Friday, September 26, 2008
It occurred to me the other day that in spite of a bad back and his marriage vows, JFK chased everything in skirts; that Gary Hart allowed his libido to sink his political career; that even nerdy Jimmy Carter confessed to having lust in his heart, although nobody in recorded history has ever been so silly or sanctimonious as to suggest that lust resided anywhere above the belt; and that Bill Clinton, like a spooky version of Mr. Rogers, patiently explained to America’s kids that oral sex isn’t really sex.
With all that in mind, doesn’t it strike you as hypocritical for the Democrats to get up in arms over a married mother of five running for the vice presidency? Doesn’t it seem at least slightly absurd that the only sexual activity that liberals frown upon is the sort that actually leads to babies being born?
Speaking of sexual activity, I came across a very peculiar traffic sign last week. We in California have long become inured to the signs depicting a family of four illegal aliens -- a father, mother and two children -- scurrying across a road. The message, I suppose, is to ignore our basic instincts, and slow down, not speed up, when we spot Mexican scofflaws sneaking into our country. The new sign I spotted is on Sunset Blvd., in West Hollywood, a community here in Los Angeles often referred to as Boys Town because it’s home to even more gays per square mile than San Francisco. The sign announced that the location was a No Cruising Zone, and that anyone caught crossing the intersection more than twice in four hours would receive a citation. I assume “citation” means a traffic ticket and not a medal, but I could be wrong. I suspect, though, that any gay hustler could beat the rap by accusing the authorities of entrapment. I mean, with all the movie star wannabes lurking in West Hollywood, how could any of them be expected to resist the opportunity to be filmed, even on a traffic camera?
I’m certain that by this time most people have seen the photos of the American flags that were left for the trash collector after the Democratic convention in Denver. Even though I have a flag outside my front door and hate to think of a flag, the symbol of a nation that inspired my two sets of grandparents to travel 7,000 miles so I could be fortunate enough to be born an American, I wasn’t as troubled by the photos as I would have been if they’d been misused after the Republican convention. Liberals, after all, are always insisting that they’re as patriotic as conservatives, but I don’t believe it. If they were, they’d respect the military far more than they do, they wouldn’t nominate someone like Barack Obama and they certainly wouldn’t keep saying how much America is despised around the world, while ignoring the fact that it’s a badge of honor to be despised by the likes of Russia, China, Iran, Yemen, North Korea, Venezuela and the PLO. They would also acknowledge that there must be a darn good reason why millions of people who weren’t as lucky as we were to be born in America are, literally in some cases, dying to come here.
So, when I see that the Democrats disrespected the flags, I understood that to them the flags were only cheap props like the balloons, the bunting, the confetti and those corny Greek columns. The real problem isn’t that the left trashed a few flags, but that they keep trashing the country.
A friend of mine has come up with what I regard as a wonderful solution to the problem of leftist influence. She proposes that liberals be offered an incentive to leave the country, as they are constantly threatening to do whenever it appears that a Republican might be elected president. The sum she came up with is a million dollars per person. That sounds like a lot until you realize that nowadays people casually toss around sums in the trillions when discussing federal budgets and deficits. Still, I think there is room for negotiation. The point is, these left-wing whiners would get a deal similar to the one the protagonist received in Edward Everett Hales’s short story, “The Man Without a Country.” Unlike Philip Nolan, though, they wouldn’t be sentenced to spend the rest of their lives sailing the seas, but they would be denied the opportunity to ever set foot again on this sacred ground. Not even for a visit. Even if only a relatively small number of leftists accepted the deal, I, for one, would consider it money well spent.
Liberals have an impossible time defending their beliefs, which is why they rely on slogans and catch phrases, unfounded rumors and ad hominem attacks, on those who, like Sara Palin, think clearly and live according to Judeo-Christian principles.
The brains and values of left-wingers have decomposed to the point where they actually believe Keith Olbermann, Rosie O’Donnell and Chris Matthews make sense and that people like Whoopi Goldberg, Al Franken and Bill Maher, are funny. That is why I say that liberalism is an addiction -- and why, as with other addictions, I’d like to see it kicked. Kicked good and hard.
Friday, September 26, 2008
It occurred to me the other day that in spite of a bad back and his marriage vows, JFK chased everything in skirts; that Gary Hart allowed his libido to sink his political career; that even nerdy Jimmy Carter confessed to having lust in his heart, although nobody in recorded history has ever been so silly or sanctimonious as to suggest that lust resided anywhere above the belt; and that Bill Clinton, like a spooky version of Mr. Rogers, patiently explained to America’s kids that oral sex isn’t really sex.
With all that in mind, doesn’t it strike you as hypocritical for the Democrats to get up in arms over a married mother of five running for the vice presidency? Doesn’t it seem at least slightly absurd that the only sexual activity that liberals frown upon is the sort that actually leads to babies being born?
Speaking of sexual activity, I came across a very peculiar traffic sign last week. We in California have long become inured to the signs depicting a family of four illegal aliens -- a father, mother and two children -- scurrying across a road. The message, I suppose, is to ignore our basic instincts, and slow down, not speed up, when we spot Mexican scofflaws sneaking into our country. The new sign I spotted is on Sunset Blvd., in West Hollywood, a community here in Los Angeles often referred to as Boys Town because it’s home to even more gays per square mile than San Francisco. The sign announced that the location was a No Cruising Zone, and that anyone caught crossing the intersection more than twice in four hours would receive a citation. I assume “citation” means a traffic ticket and not a medal, but I could be wrong. I suspect, though, that any gay hustler could beat the rap by accusing the authorities of entrapment. I mean, with all the movie star wannabes lurking in West Hollywood, how could any of them be expected to resist the opportunity to be filmed, even on a traffic camera?
I’m certain that by this time most people have seen the photos of the American flags that were left for the trash collector after the Democratic convention in Denver. Even though I have a flag outside my front door and hate to think of a flag, the symbol of a nation that inspired my two sets of grandparents to travel 7,000 miles so I could be fortunate enough to be born an American, I wasn’t as troubled by the photos as I would have been if they’d been misused after the Republican convention. Liberals, after all, are always insisting that they’re as patriotic as conservatives, but I don’t believe it. If they were, they’d respect the military far more than they do, they wouldn’t nominate someone like Barack Obama and they certainly wouldn’t keep saying how much America is despised around the world, while ignoring the fact that it’s a badge of honor to be despised by the likes of Russia, China, Iran, Yemen, North Korea, Venezuela and the PLO. They would also acknowledge that there must be a darn good reason why millions of people who weren’t as lucky as we were to be born in America are, literally in some cases, dying to come here.
So, when I see that the Democrats disrespected the flags, I understood that to them the flags were only cheap props like the balloons, the bunting, the confetti and those corny Greek columns. The real problem isn’t that the left trashed a few flags, but that they keep trashing the country.
A friend of mine has come up with what I regard as a wonderful solution to the problem of leftist influence. She proposes that liberals be offered an incentive to leave the country, as they are constantly threatening to do whenever it appears that a Republican might be elected president. The sum she came up with is a million dollars per person. That sounds like a lot until you realize that nowadays people casually toss around sums in the trillions when discussing federal budgets and deficits. Still, I think there is room for negotiation. The point is, these left-wing whiners would get a deal similar to the one the protagonist received in Edward Everett Hales’s short story, “The Man Without a Country.” Unlike Philip Nolan, though, they wouldn’t be sentenced to spend the rest of their lives sailing the seas, but they would be denied the opportunity to ever set foot again on this sacred ground. Not even for a visit. Even if only a relatively small number of leftists accepted the deal, I, for one, would consider it money well spent.
Liberals have an impossible time defending their beliefs, which is why they rely on slogans and catch phrases, unfounded rumors and ad hominem attacks, on those who, like Sara Palin, think clearly and live according to Judeo-Christian principles.
The brains and values of left-wingers have decomposed to the point where they actually believe Keith Olbermann, Rosie O’Donnell and Chris Matthews make sense and that people like Whoopi Goldberg, Al Franken and Bill Maher, are funny. That is why I say that liberalism is an addiction -- and why, as with other addictions, I’d like to see it kicked. Kicked good and hard.
Is Capitalism on the Ropes?
Larry Elder
Thursday, September 25, 2008
An indictment of greed! A case for more government intervention! Worst financial crisis since the Great Depression! Failure of capitalism! This list includes the "lessons" of the recent turmoil in the financial markets. Nonsense.
Down with greed!
Someone please produce the gun held to the temples of borrowers who put little or no money down, took out "teaser" rates, and then pleaded ignorance or victimhood when the lender -- as stipulated in the contract -- jacked up the rate. Lenders and borrowers expected government/taxpayers to somehow, someway, step in and shield them from the consequences of their decisions. This creates "moral hazard" -- behavior based upon the knowledge of protection from the bad consequences of reckless or irresponsible behavior. Decisions entail risk, whether personal or financial ones.
We need more regulation!
We have it -- lots of it. Ever hear of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO)? This agency, which employs 200 people, exists for one thing and one thing only -- to "oversee" Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the "government-sponsored entities" that own or guarantee 40 percent of the nation's residential mortgages. Mere months before Freddie and Fannie's collapse and subsequent government takeover, OFHEO issued a report that saw only clean sailing. The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977, mandated that lenders lend to high-risk borrowers -- or else. The government actually held up prudent bank mergers if one or both sides did not sufficiently "lend" to borrowers who, under normal circumstances, failed to qualify. Why is the federal government in the housing business in the first place? We need less government, not more regulation.
We are experiencing "the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression"!
Even if this were true, we aren't even close to that catastrophic event. At the Great Depression's nadir, 25 percent of adults were unemployed, including nearly 50 percent of urban black adults. Economist David Wheelock, of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, says that by the dawn of 1934, nearly half the urban homes with mortgages were in default, and 7.3 percent of housing structures had been foreclosed. Today 6.4 percent of mortgages are delinquent, 2.75 percent are in the foreclosure process, and 0.6 percent of all housing units are bank-owned.
But what about since the Great Depression? Take the recession of 1980-81. In 1980, inflation averaged 13.58 percent, unemployment increased from 6.3 to 8.5 percent, and the prime loan rate reached an astonishing 21.5 percent. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, today's delinquency rate is only a little higher than in 1985. And in 1999, the foreclosure rate set records.
According to the FDIC, in the almost two-year period of 2007 and 2008, 15 banks failed. Similarly, during Clinton's last two years in office, 1999 and 2000, 15 banks also failed. In the recession-free years of 1988 and 1989, there were 1,004 bank failures. And since the Great Depression, the average number of yearly bank failures has been 94.
This exposes the failure of capitalism!
What do you say we actually try capitalism, where private actors reap rewards and assume the risk? "Capitalism," says Kenneth Minogue, professor emeritus at the London School of Economics, "is what people do if you leave them alone." People want "hands off" until, that is, they want "hands on." People want homes, many preferring that option even when renting may be more prudent. Many want rent control to shield them from leasing at fair market rates. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promises "world-class" education -- with taxpayers paying for it. And the federal government, in dramatic contradiction with the limited-government intention of the Constitution, involves itself in health care, guaranteeing private-sector retirement accounts, disaster relief, welfare, unemployment compensation benefits, retirement benefits, etc.
The Federal Reserve Bank, in effect, prints money to pay for things that voters demand -- but their taxes cannot cover. The proposed bailout of financial institutions enables the Fed to create hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air. The cost is greater inflation -- a stealth tax on us all.
Government, meanwhile, grows and grows.
In 1930, before Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, taxpayers paid about 12 percent of their income to all three levels of government -- state, local and federal. Today we pay approximately 40 percent -- even more if you attach a value to unfunded mandates, such as those issued by agencies such as OSHA.
So, yes, our recent financial turmoil does suggest failure -- a failure to truly practice capitalism and a failure to accept and believe in the value, appropriateness and morality of a limited government and maximum personal responsibility.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
An indictment of greed! A case for more government intervention! Worst financial crisis since the Great Depression! Failure of capitalism! This list includes the "lessons" of the recent turmoil in the financial markets. Nonsense.
Down with greed!
Someone please produce the gun held to the temples of borrowers who put little or no money down, took out "teaser" rates, and then pleaded ignorance or victimhood when the lender -- as stipulated in the contract -- jacked up the rate. Lenders and borrowers expected government/taxpayers to somehow, someway, step in and shield them from the consequences of their decisions. This creates "moral hazard" -- behavior based upon the knowledge of protection from the bad consequences of reckless or irresponsible behavior. Decisions entail risk, whether personal or financial ones.
We need more regulation!
We have it -- lots of it. Ever hear of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO)? This agency, which employs 200 people, exists for one thing and one thing only -- to "oversee" Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the "government-sponsored entities" that own or guarantee 40 percent of the nation's residential mortgages. Mere months before Freddie and Fannie's collapse and subsequent government takeover, OFHEO issued a report that saw only clean sailing. The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977, mandated that lenders lend to high-risk borrowers -- or else. The government actually held up prudent bank mergers if one or both sides did not sufficiently "lend" to borrowers who, under normal circumstances, failed to qualify. Why is the federal government in the housing business in the first place? We need less government, not more regulation.
We are experiencing "the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression"!
Even if this were true, we aren't even close to that catastrophic event. At the Great Depression's nadir, 25 percent of adults were unemployed, including nearly 50 percent of urban black adults. Economist David Wheelock, of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, says that by the dawn of 1934, nearly half the urban homes with mortgages were in default, and 7.3 percent of housing structures had been foreclosed. Today 6.4 percent of mortgages are delinquent, 2.75 percent are in the foreclosure process, and 0.6 percent of all housing units are bank-owned.
But what about since the Great Depression? Take the recession of 1980-81. In 1980, inflation averaged 13.58 percent, unemployment increased from 6.3 to 8.5 percent, and the prime loan rate reached an astonishing 21.5 percent. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, today's delinquency rate is only a little higher than in 1985. And in 1999, the foreclosure rate set records.
According to the FDIC, in the almost two-year period of 2007 and 2008, 15 banks failed. Similarly, during Clinton's last two years in office, 1999 and 2000, 15 banks also failed. In the recession-free years of 1988 and 1989, there were 1,004 bank failures. And since the Great Depression, the average number of yearly bank failures has been 94.
This exposes the failure of capitalism!
What do you say we actually try capitalism, where private actors reap rewards and assume the risk? "Capitalism," says Kenneth Minogue, professor emeritus at the London School of Economics, "is what people do if you leave them alone." People want "hands off" until, that is, they want "hands on." People want homes, many preferring that option even when renting may be more prudent. Many want rent control to shield them from leasing at fair market rates. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promises "world-class" education -- with taxpayers paying for it. And the federal government, in dramatic contradiction with the limited-government intention of the Constitution, involves itself in health care, guaranteeing private-sector retirement accounts, disaster relief, welfare, unemployment compensation benefits, retirement benefits, etc.
The Federal Reserve Bank, in effect, prints money to pay for things that voters demand -- but their taxes cannot cover. The proposed bailout of financial institutions enables the Fed to create hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air. The cost is greater inflation -- a stealth tax on us all.
Government, meanwhile, grows and grows.
In 1930, before Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, taxpayers paid about 12 percent of their income to all three levels of government -- state, local and federal. Today we pay approximately 40 percent -- even more if you attach a value to unfunded mandates, such as those issued by agencies such as OSHA.
So, yes, our recent financial turmoil does suggest failure -- a failure to truly practice capitalism and a failure to accept and believe in the value, appropriateness and morality of a limited government and maximum personal responsibility.
Again
Antisemitism, welcomed and cheered.
By Anne Bayefsky
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 will go down in history as the day the United Nations General Assembly provided a platform for a head of state to spew unadulterated, vile antisemitism — and the assembled nations of the world clapped.
The United Nations has become the largest global purveyor of antisemitism in the world today. In the full knowledge that the president of Iran denies the Holocaust and advocates the destruction of the U.N. member state of Israel, the U.N. invited him to mount the dais and gave him a megaphone.
Dictators have pontificated at the General Assembly before. Terrorists like Yasser Arafat have come and gone. But in the halls of an organization founded on the ashes of the victims of the Holocaust, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s effort to promote another Holocaust from center stage stands alone.
While the United States and Israel left their ambassadorial seats empty, here is the Jew-hatred greeted by enthusiasm at today’s U.N.:
On the contrary, at the U.N. vicious antisemitism is met by a round of applause.
By Anne Bayefsky
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 will go down in history as the day the United Nations General Assembly provided a platform for a head of state to spew unadulterated, vile antisemitism — and the assembled nations of the world clapped.
The United Nations has become the largest global purveyor of antisemitism in the world today. In the full knowledge that the president of Iran denies the Holocaust and advocates the destruction of the U.N. member state of Israel, the U.N. invited him to mount the dais and gave him a megaphone.
Dictators have pontificated at the General Assembly before. Terrorists like Yasser Arafat have come and gone. But in the halls of an organization founded on the ashes of the victims of the Holocaust, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s effort to promote another Holocaust from center stage stands alone.
While the United States and Israel left their ambassadorial seats empty, here is the Jew-hatred greeted by enthusiasm at today’s U.N.:
The dignity, integrity and rights of the European and American people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the U.S. in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support...Antisemitism often masquerades as anti-Zionism — a denial of the right to self-determination only for Jews. At least Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did us the service of making the undeniable connection between the two. Disputing the legitimacy of the state of Israel, he said:
This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against they will...
Today, the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse, and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters.
In Palestine, 60 years of carnage and invasion is still ongoing at the hands of some criminal and occupying Zionists. They have forged a regime through collecting people from various parts of the world and bringing them to other people’s land by displacing, detaining and killing the true owners of that land…The Security Council cannot do anything and sometimes, under pressure from few bullying powers, even paves the way for supporting these Zionist murderers…In its entire history, the United Nations General Assembly has never adopted a resolution dedicated to denouncing and combating the scourge of antisemitism in all its forms. Now we know why. Less than half of U.N. members are fully free democracies and among them there is no consensus that discrimination and demonization of Jews and the Jewish state is wrong.
On the contrary, at the U.N. vicious antisemitism is met by a round of applause.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Rewriting History: Lies that Hurt Us All
William Wilson
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
As Congress and the Administration work to prevent the crisis in the financial sector from spilling over into the larger economy, the vultures are swarming. In an Associated Press article yesterday, the following quote is made by Barney Frank, ultra-liberal Democrat of Massachusetts:
“The private sector got us into this mess…The government has to get us out of it. We do want to do it carefully.”
This is obscene. This “mess”, as Congressman Frank so eloquently put it, is the fault of government pure and simple. And, it is the personal fault of Barney Frank. For him to now hide his near-criminal behavior by pointing a finger at the entire private sector is the height of arrogance.
Consider the facts.
Under rules implemented by the Clinton Administration in 1995, banks and mortgage companies were required to give loans to people who could not afford them. This scheme was welfare pure and simple—hand over money to people everyone knew would not be able to pay it back. The banks and mortgage companies did as required. Otherwise they would face stiff penalties and possibly lose their license to operate. So, they gave out the money to put people in homes they could not afford.
But the banks had to get the money from somewhere. They got it from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two failed quasi-government organizations. Fannie and Freddie urged, encouraged and bullied banks to give out more and more high-risk loans. They then bought these bogus mortgages and sold them to investors, again with the implied backing of the U.S. Government.
So, why wouldn’t an investment firm not buy these securities? After all, they were marketed as having the backing of the U.S. taxpayers.
The Wall Street Journal detailed Barney Frank’s sorted history of defending the scammers:
• In 2000, then-Rep. Richard Baker proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie's oversight. Mr. Frank dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were "overblown" and that there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."
• Two years later, Mr. Frank was at it again. "I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems," he said in response to another reform push. And then: "I regard them as great assets."
• Again in June 2003, the favorite of the Beltway press corps assured the public that "there is no federal guarantee" of Fan and Fred obligations.
• A month later, Freddie Mac's multibillion-dollar accounting scandal broke into the open. But Mr. Frank was sanguine. "I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis," he said at the time.
Three months later he repeated the claim that Fannie and Freddie posed no "threat to the Treasury." Even suggesting that heresy, he added, could become "a self-fulfilling prophecy."
• In April 2004, Fannie announced a multibillion-dollar financial "misstatement" of its own. Mr. Frank was back for the defense. Fannie and Freddie posed no risk to taxpayers, he said, adding that "I think Wall Street will get over it" if the two collapsed.
Pretty clear. It was not the “private sector” failing as Congressman Frank declared. It was government that failed. Specifically, it was people like Barney Frank that failed the American people. Moreover, he committed these acts for a pure ideological reason—to advance his warped left-wing vision.
But it goes deeper still. By attacking the entire “private sector”, Frank is declaring his opposition to small business and to tens of millions of people who labor for the betterment of their families by saving and investing.
The central issue of the proposed bailout proposed by the Bush Administration—the issue that prompted Barney Frank’s childish and insulting remark—is how to get billions of dollars securities based on the mortgages held by people who cannot afford them out of the system. You can argue over whether to do it or how to do it—but that is the aim of the proposal.
And what does Comrade Frank now insist is a deal-breaker? More money has to be made available to keep these people in the homes they couldn’t afford in the first place! Oh, and of course, many on his side are demanding that state and local governments who have been spending at double-digit increases every year for a decade be bailed out as well. No, they shouldn’t have to cut the feather-bedding or cut back on the silly-expensive union contracts. Barney Frank wants the American taxpayers to bail them out too.
Taking the global view, here is what happened and this is where we are. Knowing the American people were sick and tired of the welfare handouts, the liberals devised a backdoor way to funnel billions of dollars to their welfare clients. It was based on a Ponzi scheme that finally went broke. A lot of people made money along the way but the central rationale was always to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars in welfare to low income citizens.
And now that the game is exposed, the first thing these thieves do is blame the “private sector.” They are using the destruction they have caused to justify giving them more power to do even more damage.
That is what is at stake. Will we hand our country over to a group of devious, venal socialists who hate private enterprise, individual responsibility and personal freedom? Or, will we step back from the abyss, clean up the mess and set our house in order?
If he has done nothing else, Barney Frank has at least clarified the issues and made the choice clear for all willing to observe the facts. As valuable a service as this is, it should not be enough to keep him out of a well-deserved jail cell.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
As Congress and the Administration work to prevent the crisis in the financial sector from spilling over into the larger economy, the vultures are swarming. In an Associated Press article yesterday, the following quote is made by Barney Frank, ultra-liberal Democrat of Massachusetts:
“The private sector got us into this mess…The government has to get us out of it. We do want to do it carefully.”
This is obscene. This “mess”, as Congressman Frank so eloquently put it, is the fault of government pure and simple. And, it is the personal fault of Barney Frank. For him to now hide his near-criminal behavior by pointing a finger at the entire private sector is the height of arrogance.
Consider the facts.
Under rules implemented by the Clinton Administration in 1995, banks and mortgage companies were required to give loans to people who could not afford them. This scheme was welfare pure and simple—hand over money to people everyone knew would not be able to pay it back. The banks and mortgage companies did as required. Otherwise they would face stiff penalties and possibly lose their license to operate. So, they gave out the money to put people in homes they could not afford.
But the banks had to get the money from somewhere. They got it from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two failed quasi-government organizations. Fannie and Freddie urged, encouraged and bullied banks to give out more and more high-risk loans. They then bought these bogus mortgages and sold them to investors, again with the implied backing of the U.S. Government.
So, why wouldn’t an investment firm not buy these securities? After all, they were marketed as having the backing of the U.S. taxpayers.
The Wall Street Journal detailed Barney Frank’s sorted history of defending the scammers:
• In 2000, then-Rep. Richard Baker proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie's oversight. Mr. Frank dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were "overblown" and that there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."
• Two years later, Mr. Frank was at it again. "I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems," he said in response to another reform push. And then: "I regard them as great assets."
• Again in June 2003, the favorite of the Beltway press corps assured the public that "there is no federal guarantee" of Fan and Fred obligations.
• A month later, Freddie Mac's multibillion-dollar accounting scandal broke into the open. But Mr. Frank was sanguine. "I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis," he said at the time.
Three months later he repeated the claim that Fannie and Freddie posed no "threat to the Treasury." Even suggesting that heresy, he added, could become "a self-fulfilling prophecy."
• In April 2004, Fannie announced a multibillion-dollar financial "misstatement" of its own. Mr. Frank was back for the defense. Fannie and Freddie posed no risk to taxpayers, he said, adding that "I think Wall Street will get over it" if the two collapsed.
Pretty clear. It was not the “private sector” failing as Congressman Frank declared. It was government that failed. Specifically, it was people like Barney Frank that failed the American people. Moreover, he committed these acts for a pure ideological reason—to advance his warped left-wing vision.
But it goes deeper still. By attacking the entire “private sector”, Frank is declaring his opposition to small business and to tens of millions of people who labor for the betterment of their families by saving and investing.
The central issue of the proposed bailout proposed by the Bush Administration—the issue that prompted Barney Frank’s childish and insulting remark—is how to get billions of dollars securities based on the mortgages held by people who cannot afford them out of the system. You can argue over whether to do it or how to do it—but that is the aim of the proposal.
And what does Comrade Frank now insist is a deal-breaker? More money has to be made available to keep these people in the homes they couldn’t afford in the first place! Oh, and of course, many on his side are demanding that state and local governments who have been spending at double-digit increases every year for a decade be bailed out as well. No, they shouldn’t have to cut the feather-bedding or cut back on the silly-expensive union contracts. Barney Frank wants the American taxpayers to bail them out too.
Taking the global view, here is what happened and this is where we are. Knowing the American people were sick and tired of the welfare handouts, the liberals devised a backdoor way to funnel billions of dollars to their welfare clients. It was based on a Ponzi scheme that finally went broke. A lot of people made money along the way but the central rationale was always to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars in welfare to low income citizens.
And now that the game is exposed, the first thing these thieves do is blame the “private sector.” They are using the destruction they have caused to justify giving them more power to do even more damage.
That is what is at stake. Will we hand our country over to a group of devious, venal socialists who hate private enterprise, individual responsibility and personal freedom? Or, will we step back from the abyss, clean up the mess and set our house in order?
If he has done nothing else, Barney Frank has at least clarified the issues and made the choice clear for all willing to observe the facts. As valuable a service as this is, it should not be enough to keep him out of a well-deserved jail cell.
Revenge of the Bitter Gun Owners
Jacob Sullum
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Last spring, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to arms, Democrats hoped the decision would neutralize the gun issue. Instead the ruling, by inviting debate over which kinds of gun control are constitutional, has made the issue more salient.
That's bad news for Barack Obama, who the National Rifle Association (NRA) says "would be the most anti-gun president in American history." The Democratic nominee pays lip service to Second Amendment rights while calling for "common sense," "reasonable" restrictions. But Obama's sense of what's reasonable, while common among the left-liberal politicians and activists inside his comfort zone, may seem decidedly unreasonable to the pro-gun voters the NRA is trying to mobilize against him.
Since these voters made a decisive difference in the 2000 presidential election, and arguably in 2004 as well, this is a threat Obama ignores at his peril. The NRA plans to spend $15 million urging voters in battleground states of the Midwest and Mountain West to "Defend Freedom" and "Defeat Obama." Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is running radio spots in swing states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that promise "Barack Obama and John McCain will both make sure we keep our guns."
Although Factcheck.org faults the NRA for distorting Obama's record, every falsifiable claim in its TV spots has a factual basis. In one ad, a Virginia hunter complains that Obama supports "a huge new tax on my guns and ammo," referring to a position Obama took in 1999. He adds that the Illinois senator voted to "ban virtually all deer-hunting ammunition," a reference to his 2005 vote for a federal ban on rifle ammunition "designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability," phrasing that arguably covered deer-hunting ammunition.
Finally, the hunter complains that Obama wants to ban shotguns and rifles used for hunting, alluding to his support for reinstating the federal "assault weapon" ban. That law arbitrarily prohibited firearms based mainly on cosmetic features that made them look scary to gun-naive politicians.
In another NRA ad, an Iraq war veteran from Wisconsin complains, "Barack Obama opposes my right to own a handgun for self-defense." In a 1996 questionnaire, Obama's state Senate campaign said he supported a handgun ban. Today, Obama says that was a mistake, but the questionnaire bears his handwriting, so he clearly saw it without changing the supposedly erroneous answer.
As a state legislator, Obama voted against a bill shielding people who use handguns for self-defense in their homes from prosecution for violating local gun registration rules. Most tellingly, Obama has repeatedly expressed support for local handgun bans such as the District of Columbia's, which the Supreme Court overturned, and Chicago's, which faces a constitutional challenge.
"What works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne," Obama says. The line, meant to reassure gun owners, highlights his peculiar view that the extent of an American's constitutional rights depends on where he lives.
The specifics of Obama's views may turn out to be less important than the sense that he's an urban sophisticate who is unfamiliar with firearms and does not even understand the gun control laws he supports. In a 2004 debate, Obama explained the rationale for the "assault weapon" ban this way: "Unless you're seeing a lot of deer out there wearing bullet-proof vests, then there is no purpose for many of the guns." He thereby conflated the "assault weapon" and "armor-piercing bullet" issues, apparently not realizing that ordinary hunting ammunition can penetrate "bullet-proof vests."
The NRA ads seek to reinforce the impression of Obama's cluelessness. "Where is this guy from?" asks the hunter. "He's probably never been hunting a day in his life." Two of the ads allude to Obama's notorious comment that working-class voters in Pennsylvania and the Midwest "get bitter" during hard economic times and "cling to guns or religion." What will Obama cling to when voters question his commitment to the Second Amendment?
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Last spring, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to arms, Democrats hoped the decision would neutralize the gun issue. Instead the ruling, by inviting debate over which kinds of gun control are constitutional, has made the issue more salient.
That's bad news for Barack Obama, who the National Rifle Association (NRA) says "would be the most anti-gun president in American history." The Democratic nominee pays lip service to Second Amendment rights while calling for "common sense," "reasonable" restrictions. But Obama's sense of what's reasonable, while common among the left-liberal politicians and activists inside his comfort zone, may seem decidedly unreasonable to the pro-gun voters the NRA is trying to mobilize against him.
Since these voters made a decisive difference in the 2000 presidential election, and arguably in 2004 as well, this is a threat Obama ignores at his peril. The NRA plans to spend $15 million urging voters in battleground states of the Midwest and Mountain West to "Defend Freedom" and "Defeat Obama." Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is running radio spots in swing states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that promise "Barack Obama and John McCain will both make sure we keep our guns."
Although Factcheck.org faults the NRA for distorting Obama's record, every falsifiable claim in its TV spots has a factual basis. In one ad, a Virginia hunter complains that Obama supports "a huge new tax on my guns and ammo," referring to a position Obama took in 1999. He adds that the Illinois senator voted to "ban virtually all deer-hunting ammunition," a reference to his 2005 vote for a federal ban on rifle ammunition "designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability," phrasing that arguably covered deer-hunting ammunition.
Finally, the hunter complains that Obama wants to ban shotguns and rifles used for hunting, alluding to his support for reinstating the federal "assault weapon" ban. That law arbitrarily prohibited firearms based mainly on cosmetic features that made them look scary to gun-naive politicians.
In another NRA ad, an Iraq war veteran from Wisconsin complains, "Barack Obama opposes my right to own a handgun for self-defense." In a 1996 questionnaire, Obama's state Senate campaign said he supported a handgun ban. Today, Obama says that was a mistake, but the questionnaire bears his handwriting, so he clearly saw it without changing the supposedly erroneous answer.
As a state legislator, Obama voted against a bill shielding people who use handguns for self-defense in their homes from prosecution for violating local gun registration rules. Most tellingly, Obama has repeatedly expressed support for local handgun bans such as the District of Columbia's, which the Supreme Court overturned, and Chicago's, which faces a constitutional challenge.
"What works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne," Obama says. The line, meant to reassure gun owners, highlights his peculiar view that the extent of an American's constitutional rights depends on where he lives.
The specifics of Obama's views may turn out to be less important than the sense that he's an urban sophisticate who is unfamiliar with firearms and does not even understand the gun control laws he supports. In a 2004 debate, Obama explained the rationale for the "assault weapon" ban this way: "Unless you're seeing a lot of deer out there wearing bullet-proof vests, then there is no purpose for many of the guns." He thereby conflated the "assault weapon" and "armor-piercing bullet" issues, apparently not realizing that ordinary hunting ammunition can penetrate "bullet-proof vests."
The NRA ads seek to reinforce the impression of Obama's cluelessness. "Where is this guy from?" asks the hunter. "He's probably never been hunting a day in his life." Two of the ads allude to Obama's notorious comment that working-class voters in Pennsylvania and the Midwest "get bitter" during hard economic times and "cling to guns or religion." What will Obama cling to when voters question his commitment to the Second Amendment?
Why 9/11?
Understanding the enemy.
By Larry Franklin
Monday, September 22, 2008
‘The Building which they built will never cease to be a cause of hypocrisy and doubt in their hearts, unless their hearts are cut to pieces. And Allah is all-Knowing, All Wise. Verily, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties; for a price, for theirs shall be Paradise. They fight in Allah’s cause, so they kill and are killed.”
This passage is from the Quran — Surah 9, verses 110-11. It occurs in Part 11 of the 30 parts of the Quran. Is this numerical echo of 9/11 pure coincidence? Maybe not.
After all, Surah 9, “Taubah” (Repentance), is the only chapter of the 114 chapters in the Quran that does not open with the salutation “In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” This is a purposeful elision, as there can be no mercy, no compassion for us infidels. This inveterate hatred is underscored by verse 109, which asserts that the infidel building’s “foundation is on the undetermined brink of a precipice ready to crumble down with those in it, to the fire of hell. And Allah guides not the people who are polytheists” — which is to say, us. This may well be why Osama chose the date 9/11.
It is this Quranic passage that the 9/11 airborne assassins and others used to religiously justify and sanctify mass murder. It was through this verse that they often communicated their resolve.
We need to know this enemy. We need to rely more on our fellow Americans who are Muslim — who understand the mindset of those among them who are shaped spiritually and politically by a literal understanding of those specific verses. We need to appreciate the wonderful diversity of Islam that exists in our midst — and seek the assistance of the legions of spiritually focused Shiite, Sufi-oriented, and non-Wahhabi Sunni Muslims that are willing to help us battle the pernicious influence of Saudi Arabian-backed (Wahhabi-sect) extremist Sunnis. This would help us be better informed as to the true nature of our enemy and the challenge that confronts our civilization.
Our refusal to call the enemy by name — out of misplaced tolerance, political correctness, or intellectual pusillanimity — has contributed to our failure fully to comprehend his motives and methods. We continue, obscurely and inaccurately, to refer to the war on terror, terrorism, or terrorists. In truth, we are engaged in a war against radical Muslim ideologues who literally interpret Quranic passages as the eternal word of God. We should begin to tune in to how they think.
Why the date 9/11? There are other reasons, besides the Quran-numbering I mentioned above. Radical Muslims are bent on world conquest and plan the establishment of a global Caliphate. For them, the war between believer and infidel is a cosmic war, a war that began with the Prophet’s first recitation of Allah’s word. For extremist Islam, this struggle (external jihad) can end in only one way: the imposition of Islamist rule over all humanity. After all, they claim it is the will of Allah. Our enemy’s sense of time is quite different from that of our civilization. Unlike most Americans, who have little sense of history, many Muslims are highly sensitive to specific dates that reflect the vicissitudes of Islam’s history. Osama and his ilk are aware that it was on 9/11/1683 that the forces of militant Islam pressed their jihad critically close to achieving the continental conquest of Europe. It was on this date that the Ottoman Caliphate’s best troops, the Janissaries (kidnapped Christian boys trained as Muslim warriors) had penetrated the outer defenses of Vienna, the capital of Europe’s most powerful empire, the Hapsburgs.
On that date, Western civilization won one of its greatest victories. The Polish army of King John Sobieski, in response to urgent entreaties by the Pope, arrived on 9/11, joining German and Austrian relief forces led by the Duke of Lorraine. The first contingents of the European alliance arrived on the slopes of Mt. Kahlenberg, 1,000 feet above Vienna. They unfurled a giant flag that featured a white field emblazoned with a red cross. They shot off rockets so that the desperate defenders were aware that their salvation was at hand: Their lives would be spared. (The leader of the Muslim army, Kara Mustapha, had vowed to slay all within.) The next day, Lorraine and Sobieski routed the Turks. The flag flown over Kahlenberg remains to this day in a Viennese Catholic church honoring the victors.
An earlier 9/11 battle also brought defeat to Muslim military adventures. It was on September 11, 1481, that Venetian sailors turned back the Ottoman Caliphate’s fleet off the shores of Otranto in southern Italy. A follow-on planned amphibious Muslim landing was tasked with the seizure of Rome. The Eternal City was not ever again so precariously threatened. Mehmet II — the Ottoman Sultan who conquered Constantinople in 1453 — died the next year.
The date 9/11/1990 was also personally important for Osama bin Laden. It was on this date that President George H. W. Bush, speaking before a joint session of the U.S. Congress, declared a “New World Order.” In the speech’s opening paragraphs, he spoke of our troops arrayed in Arabia. This assertion was anathema to many Muslims — who remembered the Prophet’s admonition that no infidel troops should ever occupy any land on the Island of the Arabs (al-Jazirah al Arabiyah). Osama had begged the Saudi ruling family (to no avail) to permit his Arab veterans of the Afghan mujahedin war against the Soviets to defend the holy soil of Mecca and Medina rather than to depend upon “crusader” infidel troops.
On 9/11/1979, Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, became the first Arab leader to apostatize himself from Islam by signing a peace treaty with the “Zionist Entity” (Israel).On that date, Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin shook hands in President Carter’s presence after inking the Camp David Accords. Sadat paid with his life.
It would be prudent for our policymakers and intelligence czars to become more sensitive to the Islamic radicals’ worldview and sense of history. They believe their hour has arrived. They remember the incredible defeat of two empires by Muslim armies in Islam’s first century. Islamists believe that just as Allah granted them victory over that earlier age’s twin superpowers — Persia and Byzantium — he also granted them victory over the Soviet Union in our own day. Only one superpower remains, with which there can be no compromise and no peace. It is time for our political leaders and their national-security advisers to better educate themselves and our citizenry so that we can mobilize our population for what will prove to be our longest war, one that may determine whether the last best hope on earth will endure.
By Larry Franklin
Monday, September 22, 2008
‘The Building which they built will never cease to be a cause of hypocrisy and doubt in their hearts, unless their hearts are cut to pieces. And Allah is all-Knowing, All Wise. Verily, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties; for a price, for theirs shall be Paradise. They fight in Allah’s cause, so they kill and are killed.”
This passage is from the Quran — Surah 9, verses 110-11. It occurs in Part 11 of the 30 parts of the Quran. Is this numerical echo of 9/11 pure coincidence? Maybe not.
After all, Surah 9, “Taubah” (Repentance), is the only chapter of the 114 chapters in the Quran that does not open with the salutation “In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” This is a purposeful elision, as there can be no mercy, no compassion for us infidels. This inveterate hatred is underscored by verse 109, which asserts that the infidel building’s “foundation is on the undetermined brink of a precipice ready to crumble down with those in it, to the fire of hell. And Allah guides not the people who are polytheists” — which is to say, us. This may well be why Osama chose the date 9/11.
It is this Quranic passage that the 9/11 airborne assassins and others used to religiously justify and sanctify mass murder. It was through this verse that they often communicated their resolve.
We need to know this enemy. We need to rely more on our fellow Americans who are Muslim — who understand the mindset of those among them who are shaped spiritually and politically by a literal understanding of those specific verses. We need to appreciate the wonderful diversity of Islam that exists in our midst — and seek the assistance of the legions of spiritually focused Shiite, Sufi-oriented, and non-Wahhabi Sunni Muslims that are willing to help us battle the pernicious influence of Saudi Arabian-backed (Wahhabi-sect) extremist Sunnis. This would help us be better informed as to the true nature of our enemy and the challenge that confronts our civilization.
Our refusal to call the enemy by name — out of misplaced tolerance, political correctness, or intellectual pusillanimity — has contributed to our failure fully to comprehend his motives and methods. We continue, obscurely and inaccurately, to refer to the war on terror, terrorism, or terrorists. In truth, we are engaged in a war against radical Muslim ideologues who literally interpret Quranic passages as the eternal word of God. We should begin to tune in to how they think.
Why the date 9/11? There are other reasons, besides the Quran-numbering I mentioned above. Radical Muslims are bent on world conquest and plan the establishment of a global Caliphate. For them, the war between believer and infidel is a cosmic war, a war that began with the Prophet’s first recitation of Allah’s word. For extremist Islam, this struggle (external jihad) can end in only one way: the imposition of Islamist rule over all humanity. After all, they claim it is the will of Allah. Our enemy’s sense of time is quite different from that of our civilization. Unlike most Americans, who have little sense of history, many Muslims are highly sensitive to specific dates that reflect the vicissitudes of Islam’s history. Osama and his ilk are aware that it was on 9/11/1683 that the forces of militant Islam pressed their jihad critically close to achieving the continental conquest of Europe. It was on this date that the Ottoman Caliphate’s best troops, the Janissaries (kidnapped Christian boys trained as Muslim warriors) had penetrated the outer defenses of Vienna, the capital of Europe’s most powerful empire, the Hapsburgs.
On that date, Western civilization won one of its greatest victories. The Polish army of King John Sobieski, in response to urgent entreaties by the Pope, arrived on 9/11, joining German and Austrian relief forces led by the Duke of Lorraine. The first contingents of the European alliance arrived on the slopes of Mt. Kahlenberg, 1,000 feet above Vienna. They unfurled a giant flag that featured a white field emblazoned with a red cross. They shot off rockets so that the desperate defenders were aware that their salvation was at hand: Their lives would be spared. (The leader of the Muslim army, Kara Mustapha, had vowed to slay all within.) The next day, Lorraine and Sobieski routed the Turks. The flag flown over Kahlenberg remains to this day in a Viennese Catholic church honoring the victors.
An earlier 9/11 battle also brought defeat to Muslim military adventures. It was on September 11, 1481, that Venetian sailors turned back the Ottoman Caliphate’s fleet off the shores of Otranto in southern Italy. A follow-on planned amphibious Muslim landing was tasked with the seizure of Rome. The Eternal City was not ever again so precariously threatened. Mehmet II — the Ottoman Sultan who conquered Constantinople in 1453 — died the next year.
The date 9/11/1990 was also personally important for Osama bin Laden. It was on this date that President George H. W. Bush, speaking before a joint session of the U.S. Congress, declared a “New World Order.” In the speech’s opening paragraphs, he spoke of our troops arrayed in Arabia. This assertion was anathema to many Muslims — who remembered the Prophet’s admonition that no infidel troops should ever occupy any land on the Island of the Arabs (al-Jazirah al Arabiyah). Osama had begged the Saudi ruling family (to no avail) to permit his Arab veterans of the Afghan mujahedin war against the Soviets to defend the holy soil of Mecca and Medina rather than to depend upon “crusader” infidel troops.
On 9/11/1979, Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, became the first Arab leader to apostatize himself from Islam by signing a peace treaty with the “Zionist Entity” (Israel).On that date, Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin shook hands in President Carter’s presence after inking the Camp David Accords. Sadat paid with his life.
It would be prudent for our policymakers and intelligence czars to become more sensitive to the Islamic radicals’ worldview and sense of history. They believe their hour has arrived. They remember the incredible defeat of two empires by Muslim armies in Islam’s first century. Islamists believe that just as Allah granted them victory over that earlier age’s twin superpowers — Persia and Byzantium — he also granted them victory over the Soviet Union in our own day. Only one superpower remains, with which there can be no compromise and no peace. It is time for our political leaders and their national-security advisers to better educate themselves and our citizenry so that we can mobilize our population for what will prove to be our longest war, one that may determine whether the last best hope on earth will endure.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A World Without America
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Q. What do Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Barack Obama have in common?
A. The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Democratic candidate for president of the United States of America have both chosen to spend much of their lives in the company of people who are virulently hostile to this country. At least some of them seek to bring about, as Ahmadinejad puts it, a “world without America.”
As it happens, Ahmadinejad will be given Tuesday a platform for his anti-American invective by the United Nations. That organization increasingly not only shares a generalized transnational ambition to transform a sovereign, powerful United States in favor of one-world government. Worse yet, thanks to the growing petro-wealth and aggressiveness of the leaders of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the UN is actually starting to accommodate itself to that bloc’s ambition to have the new world order be arranged according to the totalitarian program the Iranian and other Islamists’ call Shariah.
In the early days of the Iranian revolution, Ahmadinejad was a street thug (and, according to some Americans taken hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran, one of their tormentors) in the service of the radical Shiite Islamist, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Ever since, he has been rewarded for his loyalty to the most intolerant strains of Islam and for his hostility to the “Great Satan.”
Today, that service continues as the front-man for the current ruling theocracy, led by another radical cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian regime is not content with having Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touting repeatedly its determination to bring about a world without America – and, by the way, without Israel, either. It is acting to acquire the capability to fulfill these genocidal threats with the development and deployment of the means of launching unimaginably destructive nuclear attacks against these nations.
Is that possible? Unfortunately, given Israel’s small size and concentrated population, a single weapon could effectively achieve Ahmadinejad’s stated goal of “wiping Israel off the map.” Less well understood is the fact that, according to a congressional commission, a single nuclear weapon used to unleash a devastating electro-magnetic pulse via a nuclear detonation in space, could cause “catastrophic” damage to this country, too. By some estimates, were the electrical grid to be taken down for a very long time, nine out of ten Americans would be unable to survive. A world without America, indeed.
Thankfully, the friends of Barack Obama who have exhibited their own, rabid hostility toward this country have had more modest ambitions towards “changing” this country – or at least not been in a position to act on Iranian-style apocalyptic visions. It is now common knowledge, however, that his pastor for twenty-years, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, called on God to “damn America” and that one of Obama’s early political allies, convicted terrorist William Ayers, expressed regret that he was unable to “do enough” when it came to “setting bombs.”
Before Messrs. Wright and Ayers, though, there was “Frank,” the name Obama gives in his memoirs to a man he describes as a formative influence during his early years in Hawaii. It turns out this Frank was none other than Frank Marshall Davis, a Stalinist black Communist whom the inestimably valuable Cliff Kincaid (www.usasurvival.org), has identified as a “high-level operative in a Soviet-sponsored network in Hawaii,” which “the communists had targeted…largely because of its strategic location and importance to the U.S. defense effort.” Kincaid describes Davis as a “propagandist, racial agitator and recruiter for the Communist Party of the USA.” He reports that, during the 19 years Davis was under FBI surveillance, Obama’s mentor “spent much of his time” photographing Hawaii’s shorelines and beachfronts – presumably not for their scenic value.
Last, but not least, there is increasing evidence of Obama’s long-standing ties to two others with records of hostility towards this country. According to investigative reporter Kenneth Timmerman, the first is Khalid al-Mansour (a.k.a. Don Warden), once a prominent advocate for racist black nationalism. Since his conversion to Islam, al-Mansour has worked closely with a Saudi billionaire anxious to “exert influence in the United States,” Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. It will be recalled that the latter was the Wahhabi whose largesse then-New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani famously spurned after 9/11 upon learning the Saudi royal had blamed American policies for that day’s horrific attack. Obama reportedly benefited from these Islamists’ help in securing a position at Harvard Law School – a university that now has a $20 million center named for the prince that helps legitimate the seditious practice of Shariah in America.
We know that Barack Obama has, in the past, declared his willingness to meet with the leaders of Iran without precondition. While he has subsequently qualified that commitment, it seems fair to conclude that, given what they have in common, the Democratic candidate would feel unencumbered by a reluctance to dignify – to say nothing of encourage – so vociferous a proponent of anti-Americanism as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It is clear what kind of “change” the Iranian president believes in and that which has animated several of Barack Obama’s long-time friends. This week’s presidential debate may afford an opportunity to determine to what extent change inimical to America is also what the Democratic candidate believes in.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Q. What do Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Barack Obama have in common?
A. The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Democratic candidate for president of the United States of America have both chosen to spend much of their lives in the company of people who are virulently hostile to this country. At least some of them seek to bring about, as Ahmadinejad puts it, a “world without America.”
As it happens, Ahmadinejad will be given Tuesday a platform for his anti-American invective by the United Nations. That organization increasingly not only shares a generalized transnational ambition to transform a sovereign, powerful United States in favor of one-world government. Worse yet, thanks to the growing petro-wealth and aggressiveness of the leaders of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the UN is actually starting to accommodate itself to that bloc’s ambition to have the new world order be arranged according to the totalitarian program the Iranian and other Islamists’ call Shariah.
In the early days of the Iranian revolution, Ahmadinejad was a street thug (and, according to some Americans taken hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran, one of their tormentors) in the service of the radical Shiite Islamist, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Ever since, he has been rewarded for his loyalty to the most intolerant strains of Islam and for his hostility to the “Great Satan.”
Today, that service continues as the front-man for the current ruling theocracy, led by another radical cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian regime is not content with having Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touting repeatedly its determination to bring about a world without America – and, by the way, without Israel, either. It is acting to acquire the capability to fulfill these genocidal threats with the development and deployment of the means of launching unimaginably destructive nuclear attacks against these nations.
Is that possible? Unfortunately, given Israel’s small size and concentrated population, a single weapon could effectively achieve Ahmadinejad’s stated goal of “wiping Israel off the map.” Less well understood is the fact that, according to a congressional commission, a single nuclear weapon used to unleash a devastating electro-magnetic pulse via a nuclear detonation in space, could cause “catastrophic” damage to this country, too. By some estimates, were the electrical grid to be taken down for a very long time, nine out of ten Americans would be unable to survive. A world without America, indeed.
Thankfully, the friends of Barack Obama who have exhibited their own, rabid hostility toward this country have had more modest ambitions towards “changing” this country – or at least not been in a position to act on Iranian-style apocalyptic visions. It is now common knowledge, however, that his pastor for twenty-years, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, called on God to “damn America” and that one of Obama’s early political allies, convicted terrorist William Ayers, expressed regret that he was unable to “do enough” when it came to “setting bombs.”
Before Messrs. Wright and Ayers, though, there was “Frank,” the name Obama gives in his memoirs to a man he describes as a formative influence during his early years in Hawaii. It turns out this Frank was none other than Frank Marshall Davis, a Stalinist black Communist whom the inestimably valuable Cliff Kincaid (www.usasurvival.org), has identified as a “high-level operative in a Soviet-sponsored network in Hawaii,” which “the communists had targeted…largely because of its strategic location and importance to the U.S. defense effort.” Kincaid describes Davis as a “propagandist, racial agitator and recruiter for the Communist Party of the USA.” He reports that, during the 19 years Davis was under FBI surveillance, Obama’s mentor “spent much of his time” photographing Hawaii’s shorelines and beachfronts – presumably not for their scenic value.
Last, but not least, there is increasing evidence of Obama’s long-standing ties to two others with records of hostility towards this country. According to investigative reporter Kenneth Timmerman, the first is Khalid al-Mansour (a.k.a. Don Warden), once a prominent advocate for racist black nationalism. Since his conversion to Islam, al-Mansour has worked closely with a Saudi billionaire anxious to “exert influence in the United States,” Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. It will be recalled that the latter was the Wahhabi whose largesse then-New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani famously spurned after 9/11 upon learning the Saudi royal had blamed American policies for that day’s horrific attack. Obama reportedly benefited from these Islamists’ help in securing a position at Harvard Law School – a university that now has a $20 million center named for the prince that helps legitimate the seditious practice of Shariah in America.
We know that Barack Obama has, in the past, declared his willingness to meet with the leaders of Iran without precondition. While he has subsequently qualified that commitment, it seems fair to conclude that, given what they have in common, the Democratic candidate would feel unencumbered by a reluctance to dignify – to say nothing of encourage – so vociferous a proponent of anti-Americanism as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It is clear what kind of “change” the Iranian president believes in and that which has animated several of Barack Obama’s long-time friends. This week’s presidential debate may afford an opportunity to determine to what extent change inimical to America is also what the Democratic candidate believes in.
Race and the union vote
Salena Zito
Sunday, September 21, 2008
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio--You just knew that when Joe O’Connell, former head of the local AFL-CIO, got on stage here with John McCain and Sarah Palin things were not going smoothly for the Obama campaign among union voters.
“I am a lifelong Democrat, an intelligent Democrat, who is supporting John McCain,” O’Connell said last week as a crowd of 7,000 waved “Another Democrat for John McCain” signs and roared its approval.
O’Connell assured the energized crowd that “organized labor will have a seat at the table when John McCain becomes president.”
It’s the kind of statement that Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George does not want to hear.
“It’s a problem,” George admits, “but we are in an all-out effort to educate our members that the Democratic Party is the only one for working families.”
He is not exaggerating when he says “all-out effort” – just try following him for a day and you’re exhausted by the events, focus groups and sit-downs in which he participates.
Democrats count on unions for get-out-the-vote efforts and for the support of members and their families. Without them, states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio -- which each have about 740,000 workers who belong to unions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- would move into the Republican column.
George narrows the problem down to race. “There is no question, earlier in the primary campaign the racial issue was there, just like the gender issue was with Hillary for some unions,” he says.
“We in America like to think we don’t have any hang-ups or stereotypes. But because of our history and because of a lot of industrial psychology controlling the masses, people have innate prejudices.”
George says that the mind-set of some people in the labor movement regarding race is no different than it is in church groups, or in the Republican Party.
Joe Rugola is George’s counterpart in Ohio and he, too, is seeing a problem with race and his members. Yet he also sees another dynamic going on -- a respect among union members for McCain.
“There is no question that John McCain historically has had a cultural connection with our members,” Rugola says, “but the reality is that his policies are not good for working families.”
Frank Stricker, a history professor at California State University and a union expert, says race is a key to what alienates segments of the labor movement, especially in Ohio and west of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.
Stricker says that other than people not voting for a black candidate, a couple of factors -- such as Obama's cultural style and pro-choice stand -- do not sit well with culturally conservative union members.
University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato is blunter: “There’s no question that race is at the heart of Obama’s problem with blue-collar white union members. You’d have to be pretty naive to think otherwise.”
Sabato explains that, normally, today’s severe economic dislocation would send union members flocking to the Democrats’ nominee. “Well, they are not flocking. McCain is their kind of guy. His biography and maverick nature are appealing.”
Yet for some labor members race does not factor at all in their voting decisions.
Joe Swistok, 62, of Southington, Ohio, is a lifelong union member who began working at Republic Steel in 1964; his father had worked there since 1936. He switched his party registration to Republican during the Reagan years.
“Reagan impressed me. That guy did a lot for this guy,” Swistok says, referring to himself. “This area is devastated for one reason: You can’t tax businesses and expect them to stay.”
Stricker thinks Obama “must make a strong economic-populist appeal,” one hinging on class warfare, in order to win Pennsylvania and Ohio.
To that end, both George and Rugola are engaged in huge voter-contact efforts -- door-knocking, phone calls, mailings, peer-to-peer efforts.
According to an AFL-CIO spokesman, 2.1 million registered voters live in union households in Ohio, 1.7 million in Pennsylvania. In a close election, every one of these votes matters for Democrats.
“Approximately a quarter of all American households say there is a union member in the home,” Sabato explains. “They are much more Democratic than average, but in GOP landslide years like 1972 and 1984, a majority has voted Republican.”
Sabato says that a third or more union members consistently vote Republican for president, despite their union leaders’ recommendations.
Part of Obama's problem is the contrast he presents: On one day alone last week, he spoke passionately about the country’s economic concerns, then zipped off to Los Angeles to raise $9 million from Hollywood’s elites.
That’s sort of like John Kerry windsurfing during the 2004 election: Union members in Youngstown or in “Little Washington,” Pa., just can’t relate.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio--You just knew that when Joe O’Connell, former head of the local AFL-CIO, got on stage here with John McCain and Sarah Palin things were not going smoothly for the Obama campaign among union voters.
“I am a lifelong Democrat, an intelligent Democrat, who is supporting John McCain,” O’Connell said last week as a crowd of 7,000 waved “Another Democrat for John McCain” signs and roared its approval.
O’Connell assured the energized crowd that “organized labor will have a seat at the table when John McCain becomes president.”
It’s the kind of statement that Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George does not want to hear.
“It’s a problem,” George admits, “but we are in an all-out effort to educate our members that the Democratic Party is the only one for working families.”
He is not exaggerating when he says “all-out effort” – just try following him for a day and you’re exhausted by the events, focus groups and sit-downs in which he participates.
Democrats count on unions for get-out-the-vote efforts and for the support of members and their families. Without them, states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio -- which each have about 740,000 workers who belong to unions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- would move into the Republican column.
George narrows the problem down to race. “There is no question, earlier in the primary campaign the racial issue was there, just like the gender issue was with Hillary for some unions,” he says.
“We in America like to think we don’t have any hang-ups or stereotypes. But because of our history and because of a lot of industrial psychology controlling the masses, people have innate prejudices.”
George says that the mind-set of some people in the labor movement regarding race is no different than it is in church groups, or in the Republican Party.
Joe Rugola is George’s counterpart in Ohio and he, too, is seeing a problem with race and his members. Yet he also sees another dynamic going on -- a respect among union members for McCain.
“There is no question that John McCain historically has had a cultural connection with our members,” Rugola says, “but the reality is that his policies are not good for working families.”
Frank Stricker, a history professor at California State University and a union expert, says race is a key to what alienates segments of the labor movement, especially in Ohio and west of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.
Stricker says that other than people not voting for a black candidate, a couple of factors -- such as Obama's cultural style and pro-choice stand -- do not sit well with culturally conservative union members.
University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato is blunter: “There’s no question that race is at the heart of Obama’s problem with blue-collar white union members. You’d have to be pretty naive to think otherwise.”
Sabato explains that, normally, today’s severe economic dislocation would send union members flocking to the Democrats’ nominee. “Well, they are not flocking. McCain is their kind of guy. His biography and maverick nature are appealing.”
Yet for some labor members race does not factor at all in their voting decisions.
Joe Swistok, 62, of Southington, Ohio, is a lifelong union member who began working at Republic Steel in 1964; his father had worked there since 1936. He switched his party registration to Republican during the Reagan years.
“Reagan impressed me. That guy did a lot for this guy,” Swistok says, referring to himself. “This area is devastated for one reason: You can’t tax businesses and expect them to stay.”
Stricker thinks Obama “must make a strong economic-populist appeal,” one hinging on class warfare, in order to win Pennsylvania and Ohio.
To that end, both George and Rugola are engaged in huge voter-contact efforts -- door-knocking, phone calls, mailings, peer-to-peer efforts.
According to an AFL-CIO spokesman, 2.1 million registered voters live in union households in Ohio, 1.7 million in Pennsylvania. In a close election, every one of these votes matters for Democrats.
“Approximately a quarter of all American households say there is a union member in the home,” Sabato explains. “They are much more Democratic than average, but in GOP landslide years like 1972 and 1984, a majority has voted Republican.”
Sabato says that a third or more union members consistently vote Republican for president, despite their union leaders’ recommendations.
Part of Obama's problem is the contrast he presents: On one day alone last week, he spoke passionately about the country’s economic concerns, then zipped off to Los Angeles to raise $9 million from Hollywood’s elites.
That’s sort of like John Kerry windsurfing during the 2004 election: Union members in Youngstown or in “Little Washington,” Pa., just can’t relate.
Put Lipstick on a Feminist and She’s Still a Prig
Mike S. Adams
Monday, September 22, 2008
Just a few Fridays ago I got the good news about the addition of Sarah Palin to the 2008 Republican ticket. I was so excited I fired off a few rounds from my assault rifle and then hopped in the car and drove back to my office at UNC-Wilmington. I wanted to talk to some of the feminists in my department about this great breakthrough in the struggle for gender equality.
Of course, none of the feminists were in the office in the hours after Sarah Palin’s introduction as John McCain’s running mate. Maybe they were off celebrating the great moment in women’s history. I think it’s more likely they were field dressing a moose. Regardless, I was just glad to spend an afternoon at the office without having to look at a feminist.
I guess in some ways the lack of feminist enthusiasm for Palin was to be expected. But I never could have expected the cumulative hostility feminists have already shown towards Palin. One of my students recently told me that his feminist professor – in the midst of a classroom lecture, no less – deemed Palin to be unqualified to serve as Vice President because she could not control her 17-year old daughter.
It is certainly interesting to hear feminists talking about the need to control other women’s bodies. But an even more interesting question arises in the context of the call for parental control over the body of Bristol Palin: How can parents possibly control the bodies of their teenaged daughters in light of feminist opposition to parental notification laws?
This situation with Bristol Palin and with Sarah Palin’s youngest son really seems to be a large part of the feminist hostility towards the Palin candidacy. The Palins are adamantly pro-life and they live lives in accordance with their pro-life views. Indeed, Bill O’Reilly suggested recently – to a nodding Laura Ingraham – that the feminist hatred of Sarah Palin was solely about the issue of abortion.
I disagree that this hostility is all about abortion. I think it also has a lot to do with Palin’s personality – specifically with her personal courage and ability to think and act independently.
Those who don’t work around feminists fail to realize fully their incapacity for independent thought and action. The feminist response to a recent controversy in my department (Sociology and Criminology) provides a good example of what I’m talking about.
Our recent decision to hire Brian Chapman as Provost at UNC-Wilmington has been, to say the least, a source of great controversy. Chapman is a very confident and assertive man who has little problem voicing his opinions. He also has no reservations about criticizing faculty members to their faces.
Provost Chapman severely ruffled the feathers of some Criminology professors when he began to insist on a fully online degree program in our department despite the complete lack of support of the faculty. Later, it was perceived by some that he was threatening to withdraw any funding of individual online courses if the department would not agree to a complete online program.
When our Dean came to the next meeting and Chapman’s perceived authoritarianism was discussed, the behavior of one feminist really said it all. With her arms folded in her lap she raised her head up meekly and asked the Dean: “Will you protect us (from Provost Chapman).”
This has been my consistent experience with “liberal” feminists. Whenever they are unable to handle a conflict with a confident man, they ask another man to protect them. And it doesn’t matter whether the feminist has the protection of lifetime tenure. She still lacks the courage to confront the problem on her own.
A few days later Provost Chapman offended some faculty with his remarks at a joint faculty meeting. (Author’s note: A joint faculty meeting is one where all faculty members are supposed to be present although not all are expected to bring joints). The provost made some remarks about the poor attendance at the meeting, which were seen as condescending in tone.
After the meeting, a feminist in my department went into the office of one of her male colleagues and asked “Who’s going to stand up to this (offensive term for private body part deleted)”. This is typical of feminists in that it insults a male by making a crude reference to his private parts. (Author’s note: When feminists wish to endear themselves to others feminists they make a crude reference to a woman’s private parts. This is called “endearment” or, more broadly, “progress.”). Of course, it is another example of how feminists believe they need men to help them stand up to other men.
Finally, at the end of the week, when faculty in my department began to criticize the Provost via emails sent on the department email list, an interesting pattern emerged. First, one male professor sent an email criticizing the Provost. Then a second male professor joined in followed by a third, fourth, and fifth male professor. At the end of the day, five male professors exercised their First Amendment right to free speech.
Of course, not a word was to be heard from a feminist – not even the one who called the Provost a (offensive term deleted). It reminded me of my first free speech controversy at UNCW some eleven years ago. In that controversy, numerous males expressed their opinions about a controversy surrounding “indecent” sexual speech in the student newspaper. Finally, two dozen feminists signed their “joint” (read: collective or conformist) opinion on the matter. The males acted as individuals, the feminists acted as a pack.
It is true that Sarah Palin does not share my feminist colleagues’ stance on abortion. Nor does she behave the way my feminist colleagues behave in the workplace. She has a faith in God that inspires courage. She has courage that inspires individualism. And, clearly, she lacks the cowardice that is a pre-requisite for radical feminism.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Just a few Fridays ago I got the good news about the addition of Sarah Palin to the 2008 Republican ticket. I was so excited I fired off a few rounds from my assault rifle and then hopped in the car and drove back to my office at UNC-Wilmington. I wanted to talk to some of the feminists in my department about this great breakthrough in the struggle for gender equality.
Of course, none of the feminists were in the office in the hours after Sarah Palin’s introduction as John McCain’s running mate. Maybe they were off celebrating the great moment in women’s history. I think it’s more likely they were field dressing a moose. Regardless, I was just glad to spend an afternoon at the office without having to look at a feminist.
I guess in some ways the lack of feminist enthusiasm for Palin was to be expected. But I never could have expected the cumulative hostility feminists have already shown towards Palin. One of my students recently told me that his feminist professor – in the midst of a classroom lecture, no less – deemed Palin to be unqualified to serve as Vice President because she could not control her 17-year old daughter.
It is certainly interesting to hear feminists talking about the need to control other women’s bodies. But an even more interesting question arises in the context of the call for parental control over the body of Bristol Palin: How can parents possibly control the bodies of their teenaged daughters in light of feminist opposition to parental notification laws?
This situation with Bristol Palin and with Sarah Palin’s youngest son really seems to be a large part of the feminist hostility towards the Palin candidacy. The Palins are adamantly pro-life and they live lives in accordance with their pro-life views. Indeed, Bill O’Reilly suggested recently – to a nodding Laura Ingraham – that the feminist hatred of Sarah Palin was solely about the issue of abortion.
I disagree that this hostility is all about abortion. I think it also has a lot to do with Palin’s personality – specifically with her personal courage and ability to think and act independently.
Those who don’t work around feminists fail to realize fully their incapacity for independent thought and action. The feminist response to a recent controversy in my department (Sociology and Criminology) provides a good example of what I’m talking about.
Our recent decision to hire Brian Chapman as Provost at UNC-Wilmington has been, to say the least, a source of great controversy. Chapman is a very confident and assertive man who has little problem voicing his opinions. He also has no reservations about criticizing faculty members to their faces.
Provost Chapman severely ruffled the feathers of some Criminology professors when he began to insist on a fully online degree program in our department despite the complete lack of support of the faculty. Later, it was perceived by some that he was threatening to withdraw any funding of individual online courses if the department would not agree to a complete online program.
When our Dean came to the next meeting and Chapman’s perceived authoritarianism was discussed, the behavior of one feminist really said it all. With her arms folded in her lap she raised her head up meekly and asked the Dean: “Will you protect us (from Provost Chapman).”
This has been my consistent experience with “liberal” feminists. Whenever they are unable to handle a conflict with a confident man, they ask another man to protect them. And it doesn’t matter whether the feminist has the protection of lifetime tenure. She still lacks the courage to confront the problem on her own.
A few days later Provost Chapman offended some faculty with his remarks at a joint faculty meeting. (Author’s note: A joint faculty meeting is one where all faculty members are supposed to be present although not all are expected to bring joints). The provost made some remarks about the poor attendance at the meeting, which were seen as condescending in tone.
After the meeting, a feminist in my department went into the office of one of her male colleagues and asked “Who’s going to stand up to this (offensive term for private body part deleted)”. This is typical of feminists in that it insults a male by making a crude reference to his private parts. (Author’s note: When feminists wish to endear themselves to others feminists they make a crude reference to a woman’s private parts. This is called “endearment” or, more broadly, “progress.”). Of course, it is another example of how feminists believe they need men to help them stand up to other men.
Finally, at the end of the week, when faculty in my department began to criticize the Provost via emails sent on the department email list, an interesting pattern emerged. First, one male professor sent an email criticizing the Provost. Then a second male professor joined in followed by a third, fourth, and fifth male professor. At the end of the day, five male professors exercised their First Amendment right to free speech.
Of course, not a word was to be heard from a feminist – not even the one who called the Provost a (offensive term deleted). It reminded me of my first free speech controversy at UNCW some eleven years ago. In that controversy, numerous males expressed their opinions about a controversy surrounding “indecent” sexual speech in the student newspaper. Finally, two dozen feminists signed their “joint” (read: collective or conformist) opinion on the matter. The males acted as individuals, the feminists acted as a pack.
It is true that Sarah Palin does not share my feminist colleagues’ stance on abortion. Nor does she behave the way my feminist colleagues behave in the workplace. She has a faith in God that inspires courage. She has courage that inspires individualism. And, clearly, she lacks the cowardice that is a pre-requisite for radical feminism.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Wall Street Fat Cats Aren't At Fault This Time
Jonah Goldberg
Friday, September 19, 2008
So, who should go to jail?
John McCain insists that the financial crisis is the direct result of Wall Street's "unbridled corruption and greed." Sarah Palin says likewise. Senator Obama, for the most part, has merely echoed what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has already said. Obama has an excuse though: He hasn't finished conducting his seminar on what's going on; he'll get back to us after a rousing multivariate analysis of the value of "decisiveness." Joe Biden says the Wall Street crisis is the result of George W. Bush's tax cuts, which makes as much sense as blaming the rising price of fairy dust. But as a wise man once asked, Who gives a rat's patoot what Joe Biden thinks?
Nonetheless, blame is settling on those old standby scapegoats, Wall Street fat cats.
So, I ask again: Who should go to jail? And the answer, as far as I can tell, is: no one - at least no one on Wall Street. That may turn out to be wrong. But even if there's a bad penny or two in the pile, nobody will say this CEO or that banker is responsible for the mess. And so far, despite a flood of coverage and speeches and finger-pointing, nobody's aimed their bony finger of condemnation at any Wall Street fat cat who did anything criminal.
Criminal stupidity is another issue entirely. But the beautiful thing about our economic system is that bad decisions are punished in the marketplace.
The starting line for the parade of falling dominoes doesn't begin on Wall Street. Nor, alas, will the parade end there. But if you want to know where it really begins, look to the Capitol steps.
The self-proclaimed angels in Washington will tell you they've been working tirelessly to expand the American dream of homeownership by making mortgages available to people unable to plunk down 20 percent on a house. Franklin Raines, the Clinton-appointed former head of Fannie Mae from 1998 to 2004, made it his top priority to make mortgages easier to get for people with poor credit, few assets and little money for a down payment.
The Clinton administration, meanwhile, reinterpreted the Jimmy Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act to politicize lending practices. Under the CRA, the government forced banks to prove they weren't "redlining" - i.e., discriminating against minorities - by approving loans to minorities and various left-wing "community group" shakedown artists whether they were bad risks or not. (A young Barack Obama got his start with exactly these sorts of groups.) Sen. Phil Gramm called it a vast extortion scheme against America's banks. Still, the banks were perfectly happy to pass the risky loans to Raines' Fannie Mae, which was happy to buy them up.
That's because Raines was transforming Fannie Mae from a boring but stable financial institution dedicated to making homes more affordable into a risky venture that abused its special status as a "Government Sponsored Enterprise" (GSE) for Raines' personal profit. Fannie bought the bad loans and bundled them together with good ones. Wall Street was glad to buy up these mortgage securities because Fannie Mae was deemed a government-insured behemoth "too big to fail." And others followed Fannie's lead.
The current financial crisis stems in large part from the fact that people who shouldn't have been buying a home, or who bought more home than they could afford, now can't pay their bills. Their bad mortgages are mixed up with the good mortgages. And thanks in part to new accounting rules set up after Enron, the bad mortgages have contaminated the whole pile, reducing the value of even stable mortgages.
Of course, there are other important factors at work here, having to do with changing technology among other things. And even if the bad mortgages weren't in the system, we'd still have the hangover from the end of the housing boom. But the financial system could have handled that with the usual corrections. The biggest dose of poison entered the financial bloodstream through Washington. And some people warned us. In 2003, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac revealed they cooked their books to overstate their earnings and that they didn't really know what was going on. The Bush administration pushed for reforms, but those efforts were rebuffed by Congress, with Democrats Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd taking point, because Fannie and Freddie have spent millions in campaign contributions.
In 2005, McCain sponsored legislation to thwart what he later called "the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole."
Obama, the Senate's second-greatest recipient of donations from Fannie and Freddie after Dodd, did nothing.
Meanwhile, Raines, the head of a government-supported institution, made $52 million of his $90 million compensation package thanks in part to fraudulent earnings statements.
But, ah yes, the greedy criminals responsible for this mess must be somewhere on Wall Street.
Friday, September 19, 2008
So, who should go to jail?
John McCain insists that the financial crisis is the direct result of Wall Street's "unbridled corruption and greed." Sarah Palin says likewise. Senator Obama, for the most part, has merely echoed what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has already said. Obama has an excuse though: He hasn't finished conducting his seminar on what's going on; he'll get back to us after a rousing multivariate analysis of the value of "decisiveness." Joe Biden says the Wall Street crisis is the result of George W. Bush's tax cuts, which makes as much sense as blaming the rising price of fairy dust. But as a wise man once asked, Who gives a rat's patoot what Joe Biden thinks?
Nonetheless, blame is settling on those old standby scapegoats, Wall Street fat cats.
So, I ask again: Who should go to jail? And the answer, as far as I can tell, is: no one - at least no one on Wall Street. That may turn out to be wrong. But even if there's a bad penny or two in the pile, nobody will say this CEO or that banker is responsible for the mess. And so far, despite a flood of coverage and speeches and finger-pointing, nobody's aimed their bony finger of condemnation at any Wall Street fat cat who did anything criminal.
Criminal stupidity is another issue entirely. But the beautiful thing about our economic system is that bad decisions are punished in the marketplace.
The starting line for the parade of falling dominoes doesn't begin on Wall Street. Nor, alas, will the parade end there. But if you want to know where it really begins, look to the Capitol steps.
The self-proclaimed angels in Washington will tell you they've been working tirelessly to expand the American dream of homeownership by making mortgages available to people unable to plunk down 20 percent on a house. Franklin Raines, the Clinton-appointed former head of Fannie Mae from 1998 to 2004, made it his top priority to make mortgages easier to get for people with poor credit, few assets and little money for a down payment.
The Clinton administration, meanwhile, reinterpreted the Jimmy Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act to politicize lending practices. Under the CRA, the government forced banks to prove they weren't "redlining" - i.e., discriminating against minorities - by approving loans to minorities and various left-wing "community group" shakedown artists whether they were bad risks or not. (A young Barack Obama got his start with exactly these sorts of groups.) Sen. Phil Gramm called it a vast extortion scheme against America's banks. Still, the banks were perfectly happy to pass the risky loans to Raines' Fannie Mae, which was happy to buy them up.
That's because Raines was transforming Fannie Mae from a boring but stable financial institution dedicated to making homes more affordable into a risky venture that abused its special status as a "Government Sponsored Enterprise" (GSE) for Raines' personal profit. Fannie bought the bad loans and bundled them together with good ones. Wall Street was glad to buy up these mortgage securities because Fannie Mae was deemed a government-insured behemoth "too big to fail." And others followed Fannie's lead.
The current financial crisis stems in large part from the fact that people who shouldn't have been buying a home, or who bought more home than they could afford, now can't pay their bills. Their bad mortgages are mixed up with the good mortgages. And thanks in part to new accounting rules set up after Enron, the bad mortgages have contaminated the whole pile, reducing the value of even stable mortgages.
Of course, there are other important factors at work here, having to do with changing technology among other things. And even if the bad mortgages weren't in the system, we'd still have the hangover from the end of the housing boom. But the financial system could have handled that with the usual corrections. The biggest dose of poison entered the financial bloodstream through Washington. And some people warned us. In 2003, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac revealed they cooked their books to overstate their earnings and that they didn't really know what was going on. The Bush administration pushed for reforms, but those efforts were rebuffed by Congress, with Democrats Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd taking point, because Fannie and Freddie have spent millions in campaign contributions.
In 2005, McCain sponsored legislation to thwart what he later called "the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole."
Obama, the Senate's second-greatest recipient of donations from Fannie and Freddie after Dodd, did nothing.
Meanwhile, Raines, the head of a government-supported institution, made $52 million of his $90 million compensation package thanks in part to fraudulent earnings statements.
But, ah yes, the greedy criminals responsible for this mess must be somewhere on Wall Street.
The Future For Bush's Legacy
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 19, 2008
WASHINGTON -- For the last 150 years, most American war presidents -- most notably Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt -- have entered (or re-entered) office knowing war was looming. Not so George Bush. Not so the war on terror. The 9/11 attacks literally came out of the blue.
Indeed, the three presidential campaigns between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 were the most devoid of foreign policy debate of any in the 20th century. The commander-in-chief question that dominates our campaigns today was almost nowhere in evidence during our '90s holiday from history.
When I asked President Bush during an interview Monday to reflect on this oddity, he cast himself back to early 2001, recalling what he expected his presidency would be about: education reform, tax cuts and military transformation from a Cold War structure to a more mobile force adapted to smaller-scale 21st-century conflict.
But a wartime president he became. And that is how history will both remember and judge him.
Getting a jump on history, many books have already judged him. The latest by Bob Woodward describes the commander in chief as unusually aloof and detached. A more favorably inclined biographer might have called it equanimity.
In the hour I spent with the president (devoted mostly to foreign policy), that equanimity was everywhere in evidence -- not the resignation of a man in the twilight of his presidency but a sense of calm and confidence in eventual historical vindication.
It is precisely that quality that allowed him to order the surge in Iraq in the face of intense opposition from the political establishment (of both parties), the foreign policy establishment (led by the feckless Iraq Study Group), the military establishment (as chronicled by Woodward) and public opinion itself. The surge then effected the most dramatic change in the fortunes of an American war since the summer of 1864.
That kind of resolve requires internal fortitude. Some have argued that too much reliance on this internal compass is what got us into Iraq in the first place. But Bush was hardly alone in that decision. He had a majority of public opinion, the commentariat and Congress with him. In addition, history has not yet rendered its verdict on the Iraq War. We can say that it turned out to be longer and more costly than expected, surely.
But the question remains as to whether the now-likely outcome -- transforming a virulently aggressive enemy state in the heart of the Middle East into a strategic ally in the war on terror -- was worth it. I suspect the ultimate answer will be far more favorable than it is today.
When I asked the president about his one unambiguous achievement, keeping us safe for seven years -- about 6 1/2 years longer than anybody thought possible at the time of 9/11 -- he was quick to credit both the soldiers keeping the enemy at bay abroad and the posse of law enforcement and intelligence officials hardening our defenses at home.
But he alluded also to some of the measures he had undertaken, including "listening in on the enemy" and "asking hardened killers about their plans." The CIA has already told us that interrogation of high-value terrorists like Khalid Sheik Mohammed yielded more valuable intelligence than any other source. In talking about these measures, the president mentioned neither this testimony as to their efficacy nor the campaign of vilification against him that these measures occasioned. More equanimity still.
What the president did note with some pride, however, is that beyond preventing a second attack, he is bequeathing to his successor the kinds of powers and institutions the next president will need to prevent further attack and successfully prosecute the long war. And indeed, he does leave behind a Department of Homeland Security, reorganized intelligence services with newly developed capacities to share information, and a revised FISA regime that grants broader and modernized wiretapping authority.
In this respect, Bush is much like Truman, who developed the sinews of war for a new era (the Department of Defense, the CIA, the NSA), expanded the powers of the presidency, established a new doctrine for active intervention abroad, and ultimately engaged in a war (Korea) -- also absent an attack on the U.S. -- that proved highly unpopular.
So unpopular that Truman left office disparaged and highly out of favor. History has revised that verdict. I have little doubt that Bush will be the subject of a similar reconsideration.
Friday, September 19, 2008
WASHINGTON -- For the last 150 years, most American war presidents -- most notably Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt -- have entered (or re-entered) office knowing war was looming. Not so George Bush. Not so the war on terror. The 9/11 attacks literally came out of the blue.
Indeed, the three presidential campaigns between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 were the most devoid of foreign policy debate of any in the 20th century. The commander-in-chief question that dominates our campaigns today was almost nowhere in evidence during our '90s holiday from history.
When I asked President Bush during an interview Monday to reflect on this oddity, he cast himself back to early 2001, recalling what he expected his presidency would be about: education reform, tax cuts and military transformation from a Cold War structure to a more mobile force adapted to smaller-scale 21st-century conflict.
But a wartime president he became. And that is how history will both remember and judge him.
Getting a jump on history, many books have already judged him. The latest by Bob Woodward describes the commander in chief as unusually aloof and detached. A more favorably inclined biographer might have called it equanimity.
In the hour I spent with the president (devoted mostly to foreign policy), that equanimity was everywhere in evidence -- not the resignation of a man in the twilight of his presidency but a sense of calm and confidence in eventual historical vindication.
It is precisely that quality that allowed him to order the surge in Iraq in the face of intense opposition from the political establishment (of both parties), the foreign policy establishment (led by the feckless Iraq Study Group), the military establishment (as chronicled by Woodward) and public opinion itself. The surge then effected the most dramatic change in the fortunes of an American war since the summer of 1864.
That kind of resolve requires internal fortitude. Some have argued that too much reliance on this internal compass is what got us into Iraq in the first place. But Bush was hardly alone in that decision. He had a majority of public opinion, the commentariat and Congress with him. In addition, history has not yet rendered its verdict on the Iraq War. We can say that it turned out to be longer and more costly than expected, surely.
But the question remains as to whether the now-likely outcome -- transforming a virulently aggressive enemy state in the heart of the Middle East into a strategic ally in the war on terror -- was worth it. I suspect the ultimate answer will be far more favorable than it is today.
When I asked the president about his one unambiguous achievement, keeping us safe for seven years -- about 6 1/2 years longer than anybody thought possible at the time of 9/11 -- he was quick to credit both the soldiers keeping the enemy at bay abroad and the posse of law enforcement and intelligence officials hardening our defenses at home.
But he alluded also to some of the measures he had undertaken, including "listening in on the enemy" and "asking hardened killers about their plans." The CIA has already told us that interrogation of high-value terrorists like Khalid Sheik Mohammed yielded more valuable intelligence than any other source. In talking about these measures, the president mentioned neither this testimony as to their efficacy nor the campaign of vilification against him that these measures occasioned. More equanimity still.
What the president did note with some pride, however, is that beyond preventing a second attack, he is bequeathing to his successor the kinds of powers and institutions the next president will need to prevent further attack and successfully prosecute the long war. And indeed, he does leave behind a Department of Homeland Security, reorganized intelligence services with newly developed capacities to share information, and a revised FISA regime that grants broader and modernized wiretapping authority.
In this respect, Bush is much like Truman, who developed the sinews of war for a new era (the Department of Defense, the CIA, the NSA), expanded the powers of the presidency, established a new doctrine for active intervention abroad, and ultimately engaged in a war (Korea) -- also absent an attack on the U.S. -- that proved highly unpopular.
So unpopular that Truman left office disparaged and highly out of favor. History has revised that verdict. I have little doubt that Bush will be the subject of a similar reconsideration.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
When Democrats Attack Your Patriotism
Jon Sanders
Thursday, September 18, 2008
In a famous moment of American oratory, President John F. Kennedy during his inaugural address urged "my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
Such a "country first" message resounded then, during the height of the Cold War, and it still echoes in civics classrooms across the nation. Meanwhile, the candidate looking to become the next revered Democrat president has been traveling the country sneering at the technological shortfalls of one who answered then what he could do for his country and entreating his Americans fellow to ask, beg, organize and demand what their country under him could do for their groups.
That is one reason why Sen. Barack Obama needed an older, more experienced Democrat as his running mate: to try to smooth over the jarring incongruity between the Democratic Party during Kennedy's day and the unabashedly socialistic party of today trying to bargain away individual freedom on the basis of group privileges and favors. Biden recognized that the "ask what you can do for your country" part was being neglected while the Obama/Biden ticket was so enthusiastically overturning that inconvenient "ask not" part.
Kennedy's "ask" was open-ended, requiring an answer within each individual, befitting the times. Biden and the Democrats of today operate from the assumption that people today are too deplorably stupid to know what's best for them — they buy the wrong cars, make the wrong energy choices, buy the wrong light bulbs, put their groceries in the wrong bags, don't know what amount of health insurance is proper and certainly don't know that socialized healthcare would cut that Gordian knot of individual decision-making altogether!
So Biden magnanimously answers Kennedy's question for them. He dubs paying taxes "patriotic." He did this on ABC's "Good Morning, America," saying that while Obama would increase taxes on the wealthy, "It's time to be patriotic." And has said it in it political rallies, telling a woman who said her friends are worried that under Obama they faced a tax increase, that she should say to them: "It's time to be patriotic."
So under Obama/Biden, Americans would demand what our country can do for our groups, and ask not what we can do for our country, because they'll tell us: pay more taxes. That's it. It's "time to be patriotic." (It's consistent in a perverse way: they can't "do for us" until they've taken from us, but hey, they'll take more from "them" so it's change you can believe in and stuff.)
Now this is a very strange definition of patriotism. True patriotism is not something that is demanded or coerced with the implicit threat of violence the way taxes are. Nations that demand acts of patriotism tend to be dictatorships. They also tend to be run by socialist blowhards, but that must be mere coincidence.
Biden is not discussing, after all, people giving more than they are required by way of taxation. He is most definitely talking about the government forcing people to pay more taxes, slapping it with the euphemism of patriotism.
Democrats are usually all about praising "dissent," but when someone dissents about paying higher taxes, they become fire-breathing jingoists of the first order.
Well, if it's "patriotism" to be quiet and allow the government to take even more of your family's livelihood and not even avail yourself of all the civic tools to fight a tax increase peacefully, would Biden consider a mugging "charitable giving"? If his home were burglarized, would Obama sigh gratefully that at last he's "given to the least of these my brethren"? Just how far would they go to redefine forceful taking as the cause of voluntary giving?
To return to Kennedy's inaugural address: his next phrase less well known. "My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." That portion refers back to comments at the beginning of the speech, where Kennedy spoke of the "revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought ... the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution."
Obama and Biden dare.
Kennedy concluded in words that today would set the media hounds baying day and night about inferred religious extremism: "Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."
But politicians don't go seeking God's blessing and help when they don't believe that the rights of man come from the hand of God as opposed to the generosity of the state.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
In a famous moment of American oratory, President John F. Kennedy during his inaugural address urged "my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
Such a "country first" message resounded then, during the height of the Cold War, and it still echoes in civics classrooms across the nation. Meanwhile, the candidate looking to become the next revered Democrat president has been traveling the country sneering at the technological shortfalls of one who answered then what he could do for his country and entreating his Americans fellow to ask, beg, organize and demand what their country under him could do for their groups.
That is one reason why Sen. Barack Obama needed an older, more experienced Democrat as his running mate: to try to smooth over the jarring incongruity between the Democratic Party during Kennedy's day and the unabashedly socialistic party of today trying to bargain away individual freedom on the basis of group privileges and favors. Biden recognized that the "ask what you can do for your country" part was being neglected while the Obama/Biden ticket was so enthusiastically overturning that inconvenient "ask not" part.
Kennedy's "ask" was open-ended, requiring an answer within each individual, befitting the times. Biden and the Democrats of today operate from the assumption that people today are too deplorably stupid to know what's best for them — they buy the wrong cars, make the wrong energy choices, buy the wrong light bulbs, put their groceries in the wrong bags, don't know what amount of health insurance is proper and certainly don't know that socialized healthcare would cut that Gordian knot of individual decision-making altogether!
So Biden magnanimously answers Kennedy's question for them. He dubs paying taxes "patriotic." He did this on ABC's "Good Morning, America," saying that while Obama would increase taxes on the wealthy, "It's time to be patriotic." And has said it in it political rallies, telling a woman who said her friends are worried that under Obama they faced a tax increase, that she should say to them: "It's time to be patriotic."
So under Obama/Biden, Americans would demand what our country can do for our groups, and ask not what we can do for our country, because they'll tell us: pay more taxes. That's it. It's "time to be patriotic." (It's consistent in a perverse way: they can't "do for us" until they've taken from us, but hey, they'll take more from "them" so it's change you can believe in and stuff.)
Now this is a very strange definition of patriotism. True patriotism is not something that is demanded or coerced with the implicit threat of violence the way taxes are. Nations that demand acts of patriotism tend to be dictatorships. They also tend to be run by socialist blowhards, but that must be mere coincidence.
Biden is not discussing, after all, people giving more than they are required by way of taxation. He is most definitely talking about the government forcing people to pay more taxes, slapping it with the euphemism of patriotism.
Democrats are usually all about praising "dissent," but when someone dissents about paying higher taxes, they become fire-breathing jingoists of the first order.
Well, if it's "patriotism" to be quiet and allow the government to take even more of your family's livelihood and not even avail yourself of all the civic tools to fight a tax increase peacefully, would Biden consider a mugging "charitable giving"? If his home were burglarized, would Obama sigh gratefully that at last he's "given to the least of these my brethren"? Just how far would they go to redefine forceful taking as the cause of voluntary giving?
To return to Kennedy's inaugural address: his next phrase less well known. "My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." That portion refers back to comments at the beginning of the speech, where Kennedy spoke of the "revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought ... the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution."
Obama and Biden dare.
Kennedy concluded in words that today would set the media hounds baying day and night about inferred religious extremism: "Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."
But politicians don't go seeking God's blessing and help when they don't believe that the rights of man come from the hand of God as opposed to the generosity of the state.
TIME Gives Distorted View of McCain’s, Obama’s Character
Brian Fitzpatrick
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
In TIME magazine’s perspective, John McCain is a master manipulator and Barack Obama is a victim. Or at least that’s what the editors want you to think.
TIME’s two lead campaign stories on the Web site Monday morning are marvelously contrasting in their tones. The Arizona senator gets a punch in the snoot: “McCain’s Outraged and Outrageous Campaign.” The Illinois senator gets a sympathetic cuddle: “For Obama, Race Remains Elephant in the Room.”
The first story, by Michael Scherer, accuses the GOP presidential nominee of manipulating voters’ emotions, and media coverage, by using false indignation as a political tactic. McCain “baited the outrage hook” primarily by taking umbrage at the “alleged mistreatment that the press and the Obama campaign were heaping on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.”
A glance at TIME’s own Web site suggests strongly that the McCain campaign has legitimate grounds for complaint. On Sept. 2, TIME posted the shameful “Searching for Palin’s ‘Hot Photos’”; Sept. 9, “Skeletons in Palin’s Closet?”; Sept. 10, “Sarah Palin’s Myth of America”; Sept. 11, “How Did Palin Do? Two Views [both critical of Palin]; and Sept. 11, “Palin and Troopergate: A Primer.”
What “outrageous” act has McCain committed, in Scherer’s eyes? He “compared Obama to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and even Moses, mocking Obama’s ‘celebrity’ in a way that was both controversial and certain to grab lots of free airtime.” Pretty thin gruel, but Scherer gets an assist from kneejerk TIME leftie Joe Klein. In his Sept. 10 blog, “Apology Not Accepted,” Klein huffs that McCain’s ad grilling Obama for supporting comprehensive sex ed for kindergartners is “one of the sleaziest ads I’ve ever seen in presidential politics, so sleazy that I won’t abet its spread by linking to it.”
TIME’s Karen Tumulty asks in a blog, “Why doesn’t Obama hit back harder?” She points to the second lead story, Michael Grunwald’s “For Obama, Race Remains Elephant in the Room.” Grunwald suggests that Obama is being victimized by America’s racism: “So Obama is probably wise to ignore the liberals who keep begging him to drop his air of unflappability and start taking Republican scalps. White America already embraces black celebrities, even ‘flashy’ ones. But it has never really warmed up to an angry one.”
What campaign are Tumulty and Grunwald watching? This “Saint” Obama they describe lacks even a fleeting resemblance to reality. The truth is, Obama is attacking much more aggressively than McCain ever has. Just look at a few of Monday’s headlines: “New Obama Ad Questions McCain’s Honor” (Breitbart); “Biden: McCain is Ex-reformer Turned Rove Disciple” (AP); “Obama: McCain Shows ‘Lack of Interest’ in Issues” (The Hill); and a tag team assault based on a single statement taken out of context, “McCain Says Economic ‘Fundamentals’ Strong, Obama Attacks (AFP) and “Biden Lashes Into McCain for ‘Fundamentals Are Strong’ Remark” (The Hill). Even the liberal Washington Post gave Obama “three Pinocchios” for “significant factual errors” Tuesday morning, for running an ad implying falsely that some of McCain’s advisors are currently working as D.C. lobbyists.
Scherer suggests Obama’s aggressiveness began in earnest only “last week,” with Obama’s attack on McCain for being so old he doesn’t know how to use a computer. But Scherer himself acknowledges that fully a month ago, Obama was attacking McCain for not knowing how many houses his wife owns. Obama jumped all over his first opportunity to play the class warfare card.
Also, The Wall Street Journal reports that two weeks ago, Obama “airdropped a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers” into Alaska, to “dig into Palin’s record and background.” This onslaught must have been planned well in advance, because the “first wave arrived in Anchorage less than 24 hours” after McCain chose Palin on August 29.
Barack Obama was clearly willing to and intent on taking the low road, ridiculing McCain and compiling a dossier on Palin even before the Alaska governor profoundly changed the presidential race. Yet TIME portrays him as if his hands are clean. If anyone has displayed great skill in manipulating the media, it’s Obama. If anybody has been victimized, it’s McCain and Palin.
Without doubt, TIME is providing a distorted view of the character of the two major party presidential tickets (for one possible explanation why, see CMI’s report on the liberal partisan overseeing TIME’s campaign coverage, “TIME’s Religious Democratic Crusader”). Unfortunately, TIME is not alone. A self-described Hollywood director and visual effects specialist, unwilling to give his name for fear of reprisals, has written a fascinating article alleging that ABC used “camera trickery” to make Palin look like “weak prey” in her interviews with Charlie Gibson. On the American Thinker Web site, Cecil Turner has exposed serious errors in AP’s reporting of Sarah Palin’s supposed attempts to censor library books. Atlantic Monthly is reportedly about to apologize for photos retouched to ridicule the GOP ticket.
CMI has no objection to tough investigative reporting and negative campaigning. Done properly, such criticism sheds a great deal of light on the character and values of the candidates, so we’d like to see more of it. Much of the campaign reporting this election season, however, is not being done properly. Many reporters are so biased they seem blind to what’s happening right before their eyes. Others appear willing to deliberately deceive their viewers. News consumers need to take what they’re reading, and even what they’re seeing, with a grain of salt.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
In TIME magazine’s perspective, John McCain is a master manipulator and Barack Obama is a victim. Or at least that’s what the editors want you to think.
TIME’s two lead campaign stories on the Web site Monday morning are marvelously contrasting in their tones. The Arizona senator gets a punch in the snoot: “McCain’s Outraged and Outrageous Campaign.” The Illinois senator gets a sympathetic cuddle: “For Obama, Race Remains Elephant in the Room.”
The first story, by Michael Scherer, accuses the GOP presidential nominee of manipulating voters’ emotions, and media coverage, by using false indignation as a political tactic. McCain “baited the outrage hook” primarily by taking umbrage at the “alleged mistreatment that the press and the Obama campaign were heaping on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.”
A glance at TIME’s own Web site suggests strongly that the McCain campaign has legitimate grounds for complaint. On Sept. 2, TIME posted the shameful “Searching for Palin’s ‘Hot Photos’”; Sept. 9, “Skeletons in Palin’s Closet?”; Sept. 10, “Sarah Palin’s Myth of America”; Sept. 11, “How Did Palin Do? Two Views [both critical of Palin]; and Sept. 11, “Palin and Troopergate: A Primer.”
What “outrageous” act has McCain committed, in Scherer’s eyes? He “compared Obama to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and even Moses, mocking Obama’s ‘celebrity’ in a way that was both controversial and certain to grab lots of free airtime.” Pretty thin gruel, but Scherer gets an assist from kneejerk TIME leftie Joe Klein. In his Sept. 10 blog, “Apology Not Accepted,” Klein huffs that McCain’s ad grilling Obama for supporting comprehensive sex ed for kindergartners is “one of the sleaziest ads I’ve ever seen in presidential politics, so sleazy that I won’t abet its spread by linking to it.”
TIME’s Karen Tumulty asks in a blog, “Why doesn’t Obama hit back harder?” She points to the second lead story, Michael Grunwald’s “For Obama, Race Remains Elephant in the Room.” Grunwald suggests that Obama is being victimized by America’s racism: “So Obama is probably wise to ignore the liberals who keep begging him to drop his air of unflappability and start taking Republican scalps. White America already embraces black celebrities, even ‘flashy’ ones. But it has never really warmed up to an angry one.”
What campaign are Tumulty and Grunwald watching? This “Saint” Obama they describe lacks even a fleeting resemblance to reality. The truth is, Obama is attacking much more aggressively than McCain ever has. Just look at a few of Monday’s headlines: “New Obama Ad Questions McCain’s Honor” (Breitbart); “Biden: McCain is Ex-reformer Turned Rove Disciple” (AP); “Obama: McCain Shows ‘Lack of Interest’ in Issues” (The Hill); and a tag team assault based on a single statement taken out of context, “McCain Says Economic ‘Fundamentals’ Strong, Obama Attacks (AFP) and “Biden Lashes Into McCain for ‘Fundamentals Are Strong’ Remark” (The Hill). Even the liberal Washington Post gave Obama “three Pinocchios” for “significant factual errors” Tuesday morning, for running an ad implying falsely that some of McCain’s advisors are currently working as D.C. lobbyists.
Scherer suggests Obama’s aggressiveness began in earnest only “last week,” with Obama’s attack on McCain for being so old he doesn’t know how to use a computer. But Scherer himself acknowledges that fully a month ago, Obama was attacking McCain for not knowing how many houses his wife owns. Obama jumped all over his first opportunity to play the class warfare card.
Also, The Wall Street Journal reports that two weeks ago, Obama “airdropped a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers” into Alaska, to “dig into Palin’s record and background.” This onslaught must have been planned well in advance, because the “first wave arrived in Anchorage less than 24 hours” after McCain chose Palin on August 29.
Barack Obama was clearly willing to and intent on taking the low road, ridiculing McCain and compiling a dossier on Palin even before the Alaska governor profoundly changed the presidential race. Yet TIME portrays him as if his hands are clean. If anyone has displayed great skill in manipulating the media, it’s Obama. If anybody has been victimized, it’s McCain and Palin.
Without doubt, TIME is providing a distorted view of the character of the two major party presidential tickets (for one possible explanation why, see CMI’s report on the liberal partisan overseeing TIME’s campaign coverage, “TIME’s Religious Democratic Crusader”). Unfortunately, TIME is not alone. A self-described Hollywood director and visual effects specialist, unwilling to give his name for fear of reprisals, has written a fascinating article alleging that ABC used “camera trickery” to make Palin look like “weak prey” in her interviews with Charlie Gibson. On the American Thinker Web site, Cecil Turner has exposed serious errors in AP’s reporting of Sarah Palin’s supposed attempts to censor library books. Atlantic Monthly is reportedly about to apologize for photos retouched to ridicule the GOP ticket.
CMI has no objection to tough investigative reporting and negative campaigning. Done properly, such criticism sheds a great deal of light on the character and values of the candidates, so we’d like to see more of it. Much of the campaign reporting this election season, however, is not being done properly. Many reporters are so biased they seem blind to what’s happening right before their eyes. Others appear willing to deliberately deceive their viewers. News consumers need to take what they’re reading, and even what they’re seeing, with a grain of salt.
Stop Rewarding Bad Behavior!
Ken Blackwell
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Dow dropped 504 points as major American corporations nosedived, some of which are being saved with your tax money. It is way past the time to give corporate executives additional incentives to avoid asking for a congressional bailout. Instead they must run their companies responsibly.
It started when Bear Stearns was bailed out by federal authorities a few weeks ago. What is unprecedented about this is the Federal Reserve, which formerly operated as a lender of last resort to banks, for the first time channeled cash to a financial investment firm, radically expanding its sphere of regulation.
In the wake of this, market-watchers speculated which firm would be bailed out next. On Monday the feds let Lehman Brothers, one of the nation’soldest investment houses, collapse. Another giant, Merrill Lynch, was acquired by Bank of America as Merrill’s value plummeted.
Then AIG, with initial assets of one trillion dollars, lost 60% of its value. Fearing the global financial tidal wave AIG’s failure would cause, the feds stepped in. The international insurance giant was spared Lehman’s fate.
These private-sector failings happened at the same time of the collapse of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Those two institutions have no one to blame but themselves. Mortgage lenders were issuing mortgages to people with no income and no assets. That is simply insane. Who gives a loan to someone who cannot cover it and has no income with which to make payments? Someone who thinks that Congress will bail them out with your money if things go bad, that is who.
Some on the left criticize this as the failure of the free market. They will demand increased government control of the economy, but they are wrong. Markets have both potential and risk. Business leaders get paid to exercise their judgment of the markets in order to maximize a company’s profits. Boards of directors exercise their judgment to elect corporate officers who will best achieve this goal.
But that is not what is happening in some corporations. A corporation should not pay one dollar more than necessary to keep corporate officers from quitting. Instead some are paying one dollar less than the amount that would send shareholders into an all-out revolt. Such corporations are operating to enrich their top employees at the expense of shareholders. That is backward - corporations exist to enrich shareholders.
This week's financial meltdown offers examples of this. The top officer at Lehman Brothers was Dick Fuld. His personal compensation over the past several years was nearly half a billion dollars before taxes. He was raking in these astounding paychecks while the company entrusted to him was at serious risk because of reckless investment decisions.
Perhaps someone could do such an amazing job that they are worth such pay, but the fact that his company is now bankrupt creates doubt that his compensation was merited by his performance.
With freedom comes responsibility. Those who would have self-government must, by definition, govern themselves. Self-government only works when people act responsibly and fulfill their obligations. When people abuse these freedoms to enrich themselves at the expense of others, then the public will demand the government to step in. That is how government grows, and how freedom is diminished.
The prospect of government intervention should be terrifying to corporate leaders. For too long many of them viewed it as a safety net.
First, as many have suggested, if the feds become involved the corporate executives responsible for the failed company should only receive a government salary. But more is needed.
So if federal regulators become involved, all supplemental, deferred, and other non-salary compensation should be immediately canceled. Beyond that, federal regulators should also have the option of terminating officers, forcing the corporateboard to find new leadership.
After all, if someone is running a company so poorly that it goes under, why should one get paid enormous sums for one's incompetence? If a company goes under, those responsible should not be rewarded. And after the recent federal bailouts, some corporate officers are likely considering seeking thesame bailout.
As my grandmother was fond of saying, if you reward bad behavior all you are going to get is more bad behavior.
Reckless and irresponsible individuals like those at the companies mentioned above give decent corporate managers a bad name. When financial meltdowns occur, the public’s outrage drives government to take over part of the private sector. When the government does so, it replaces irresponsible executives with unaccountable bureaucrats.
That takes us out of the frying pan and into the fire. To prevent that outcome, corporate officers must be made accountable.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Dow dropped 504 points as major American corporations nosedived, some of which are being saved with your tax money. It is way past the time to give corporate executives additional incentives to avoid asking for a congressional bailout. Instead they must run their companies responsibly.
It started when Bear Stearns was bailed out by federal authorities a few weeks ago. What is unprecedented about this is the Federal Reserve, which formerly operated as a lender of last resort to banks, for the first time channeled cash to a financial investment firm, radically expanding its sphere of regulation.
In the wake of this, market-watchers speculated which firm would be bailed out next. On Monday the feds let Lehman Brothers, one of the nation’soldest investment houses, collapse. Another giant, Merrill Lynch, was acquired by Bank of America as Merrill’s value plummeted.
Then AIG, with initial assets of one trillion dollars, lost 60% of its value. Fearing the global financial tidal wave AIG’s failure would cause, the feds stepped in. The international insurance giant was spared Lehman’s fate.
These private-sector failings happened at the same time of the collapse of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Those two institutions have no one to blame but themselves. Mortgage lenders were issuing mortgages to people with no income and no assets. That is simply insane. Who gives a loan to someone who cannot cover it and has no income with which to make payments? Someone who thinks that Congress will bail them out with your money if things go bad, that is who.
Some on the left criticize this as the failure of the free market. They will demand increased government control of the economy, but they are wrong. Markets have both potential and risk. Business leaders get paid to exercise their judgment of the markets in order to maximize a company’s profits. Boards of directors exercise their judgment to elect corporate officers who will best achieve this goal.
But that is not what is happening in some corporations. A corporation should not pay one dollar more than necessary to keep corporate officers from quitting. Instead some are paying one dollar less than the amount that would send shareholders into an all-out revolt. Such corporations are operating to enrich their top employees at the expense of shareholders. That is backward - corporations exist to enrich shareholders.
This week's financial meltdown offers examples of this. The top officer at Lehman Brothers was Dick Fuld. His personal compensation over the past several years was nearly half a billion dollars before taxes. He was raking in these astounding paychecks while the company entrusted to him was at serious risk because of reckless investment decisions.
Perhaps someone could do such an amazing job that they are worth such pay, but the fact that his company is now bankrupt creates doubt that his compensation was merited by his performance.
With freedom comes responsibility. Those who would have self-government must, by definition, govern themselves. Self-government only works when people act responsibly and fulfill their obligations. When people abuse these freedoms to enrich themselves at the expense of others, then the public will demand the government to step in. That is how government grows, and how freedom is diminished.
The prospect of government intervention should be terrifying to corporate leaders. For too long many of them viewed it as a safety net.
First, as many have suggested, if the feds become involved the corporate executives responsible for the failed company should only receive a government salary. But more is needed.
So if federal regulators become involved, all supplemental, deferred, and other non-salary compensation should be immediately canceled. Beyond that, federal regulators should also have the option of terminating officers, forcing the corporateboard to find new leadership.
After all, if someone is running a company so poorly that it goes under, why should one get paid enormous sums for one's incompetence? If a company goes under, those responsible should not be rewarded. And after the recent federal bailouts, some corporate officers are likely considering seeking thesame bailout.
As my grandmother was fond of saying, if you reward bad behavior all you are going to get is more bad behavior.
Reckless and irresponsible individuals like those at the companies mentioned above give decent corporate managers a bad name. When financial meltdowns occur, the public’s outrage drives government to take over part of the private sector. When the government does so, it replaces irresponsible executives with unaccountable bureaucrats.
That takes us out of the frying pan and into the fire. To prevent that outcome, corporate officers must be made accountable.
We Are Losing Europe to Islam
Diana West
Thursday, September 18, 2008
With Wall Street convulsing, and the White House race intensifying, the question "Who lost Europe" is on no one's lips, let alone minds. Indeed, the question begs another: "Is Europe lost?"
The answer to the second question is, "No, not yet." And losing Europe, I would add, is by no means inevitable. But that doesn't mean the continent isn't currently hell-bent to accommodate the dictates of Islamic law, bit by increasingly larger bit. Such a course of accommodation, barring reversal, will only hasten Bernard Lewis' famous prediction that Europe will be Islamic by century's end.
And what do I mean by "accommodation"? Well, to take one tiny example, one snowflake in a blizzard of such examples, there are schools in Belgium that not only serve halal food to Muslim and non-Muslim alike (old news), but, according to a recent French magazine report, no longer teach authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. (Don't even ask about the Holocaust.)
For a more substantial, indeed, keystone example of accommodation, we can look to England, where, it pains me to write, Sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. According to press reports this week, the British government has quietly, cravenly elevated five Sharia courts to the level of tribunal hearings, thus making their rulings legally binding.
It may be difficult to quantify the impact of a Voltaire vacuum on the continent, but we can instantly see the inequities of British Sharia (I can't believe I'm writing that phrase). Among the first official verdicts were those upholding the Islamic belief in male supremacy. These included an inheritance decision in which male heirs received twice as much as female; and several cases of domestic violence in which husbands were acquitted and wives' charges were dropped.
In a decidedly minuscule minority, I say we ignore the spread of Islamic law across Europe, from the schoolroom to the courtroom, at our peril, particularly given that in so doing, we also ignore the vital political parties that have arisen in reaction to this threat to Western civilization. Why at our peril? Because the same type of liberty-shrinking, Sharia-driven accommodation is happening here.
Of the parties dedicated to resisting Islamization that I examined in Europe last summer, the most promising range from the sizeable Vlaams Belang in Belgium to the tiny Sweden Democrats, and include the Lega Nord in Italy, the Party for Freedom of Geert Wilders in Holland, the Danish People's Party, the Swiss People's Party and the Austrian Freedom Party. Such parties are unknown here, or ignored. Worse, they are shunned. Why? I believe it's because their respective political opponents -- the leftist media and governing establishments that are increasingly dependent on Islamic support, by the way -- have successfully slandered these parties as "extremists," "racists," "fascists" and "Nazis."
Is advocating freedom of speech "extreme" or "fascist"? Is opposing Islam's law, which knows no race, "racist"? Is supporting Israel (which these parties do far more than other European parties) "Nazi"? The outrageously empty epithets of the Islamo-socialist left seem calculated to stop thought cold and trigger a massive rejection reflex. In this way, resistance becomes anathema, and Islamic law, unchecked, spreads across Europe.
Does that sound "Islamophobic"? You bet. How can anyone who values freedom of conscience, equality before the law and other such Western jewels not have a healthy fear of Islamic law, which values none of these things? Incredibly, this is an emotion that is supposed to be suppressed -- and, in Europe, on pain of prosecution. Indeed, because Filip Dewinter admitted to such "Islamophobia" in an interview, his party, the Vlaams Belang, has been taken to court in Belgium on charges of racism, and, if convicted, will be effectively shut down through defunding by the government.
That hasn't stopped Dewinter, who, in accepting an award at a memorial event dedicated to Oriana Fallaci in Florence, last week, said: "Islamophobia is not merely a phenomenon of unparalleled fear, but it is the duty of every one who wants to safeguard Europe's future. Europe means Rome, Greece, Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian roots. Europe is a continent of castles and cathedrals, not of mosques and minarets."
Of course, even as Dewinter admits to fearing the Islamization of Europe, he and his colleagues act with exceptional political -- and physical -- bravery in rallying voters against it. This coming weekend, he joins several other politicians on the Sharia-fighting right in Europe -- among them two other men I interviewed, Mario Borghezio of Lega Nord, which is part of Italy's ruling coalition, and Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria's Freedom Party, which is expected to become part of Austria's ruling coalition after elections this month -- in Cologne, Germany. In that ancient cathedral city, where the city council recently approved the construction of a long-controversial mega-mosque, these men will address a rally against European Islamization. (Contrary to initial reports, Jean-Marie Le Pen will not be at the demonstration.) The Sharia-fighters expect 1,500 demonstrators. Police expect 40,000 counter-demonstrators.
These are frightening odds -- a metaphor, perhaps, for Europe's chances of staving off Islamic law. Who lost Europe? If it does happen, we certainly won't be able to say we weren't warned.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
With Wall Street convulsing, and the White House race intensifying, the question "Who lost Europe" is on no one's lips, let alone minds. Indeed, the question begs another: "Is Europe lost?"
The answer to the second question is, "No, not yet." And losing Europe, I would add, is by no means inevitable. But that doesn't mean the continent isn't currently hell-bent to accommodate the dictates of Islamic law, bit by increasingly larger bit. Such a course of accommodation, barring reversal, will only hasten Bernard Lewis' famous prediction that Europe will be Islamic by century's end.
And what do I mean by "accommodation"? Well, to take one tiny example, one snowflake in a blizzard of such examples, there are schools in Belgium that not only serve halal food to Muslim and non-Muslim alike (old news), but, according to a recent French magazine report, no longer teach authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. (Don't even ask about the Holocaust.)
For a more substantial, indeed, keystone example of accommodation, we can look to England, where, it pains me to write, Sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. According to press reports this week, the British government has quietly, cravenly elevated five Sharia courts to the level of tribunal hearings, thus making their rulings legally binding.
It may be difficult to quantify the impact of a Voltaire vacuum on the continent, but we can instantly see the inequities of British Sharia (I can't believe I'm writing that phrase). Among the first official verdicts were those upholding the Islamic belief in male supremacy. These included an inheritance decision in which male heirs received twice as much as female; and several cases of domestic violence in which husbands were acquitted and wives' charges were dropped.
In a decidedly minuscule minority, I say we ignore the spread of Islamic law across Europe, from the schoolroom to the courtroom, at our peril, particularly given that in so doing, we also ignore the vital political parties that have arisen in reaction to this threat to Western civilization. Why at our peril? Because the same type of liberty-shrinking, Sharia-driven accommodation is happening here.
Of the parties dedicated to resisting Islamization that I examined in Europe last summer, the most promising range from the sizeable Vlaams Belang in Belgium to the tiny Sweden Democrats, and include the Lega Nord in Italy, the Party for Freedom of Geert Wilders in Holland, the Danish People's Party, the Swiss People's Party and the Austrian Freedom Party. Such parties are unknown here, or ignored. Worse, they are shunned. Why? I believe it's because their respective political opponents -- the leftist media and governing establishments that are increasingly dependent on Islamic support, by the way -- have successfully slandered these parties as "extremists," "racists," "fascists" and "Nazis."
Is advocating freedom of speech "extreme" or "fascist"? Is opposing Islam's law, which knows no race, "racist"? Is supporting Israel (which these parties do far more than other European parties) "Nazi"? The outrageously empty epithets of the Islamo-socialist left seem calculated to stop thought cold and trigger a massive rejection reflex. In this way, resistance becomes anathema, and Islamic law, unchecked, spreads across Europe.
Does that sound "Islamophobic"? You bet. How can anyone who values freedom of conscience, equality before the law and other such Western jewels not have a healthy fear of Islamic law, which values none of these things? Incredibly, this is an emotion that is supposed to be suppressed -- and, in Europe, on pain of prosecution. Indeed, because Filip Dewinter admitted to such "Islamophobia" in an interview, his party, the Vlaams Belang, has been taken to court in Belgium on charges of racism, and, if convicted, will be effectively shut down through defunding by the government.
That hasn't stopped Dewinter, who, in accepting an award at a memorial event dedicated to Oriana Fallaci in Florence, last week, said: "Islamophobia is not merely a phenomenon of unparalleled fear, but it is the duty of every one who wants to safeguard Europe's future. Europe means Rome, Greece, Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian roots. Europe is a continent of castles and cathedrals, not of mosques and minarets."
Of course, even as Dewinter admits to fearing the Islamization of Europe, he and his colleagues act with exceptional political -- and physical -- bravery in rallying voters against it. This coming weekend, he joins several other politicians on the Sharia-fighting right in Europe -- among them two other men I interviewed, Mario Borghezio of Lega Nord, which is part of Italy's ruling coalition, and Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria's Freedom Party, which is expected to become part of Austria's ruling coalition after elections this month -- in Cologne, Germany. In that ancient cathedral city, where the city council recently approved the construction of a long-controversial mega-mosque, these men will address a rally against European Islamization. (Contrary to initial reports, Jean-Marie Le Pen will not be at the demonstration.) The Sharia-fighters expect 1,500 demonstrators. Police expect 40,000 counter-demonstrators.
These are frightening odds -- a metaphor, perhaps, for Europe's chances of staving off Islamic law. Who lost Europe? If it does happen, we certainly won't be able to say we weren't warned.
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