Hallowed Ground

Pat Buchannan, in his latest article, doesn't like the Ground Zero Mosque either.

The issue here is the appalling insensitivity, if not calculated insult, of erecting a mosque two blocks from a World Trade Center where 3,000 Americans were massacred by Islamic fanatics whose Muslim religion was integral to their identity and mission.

It is no more religious bigotry to oppose the Ground Zero Mosque than it would have been religious bigotry to oppose building a Shinto shrine in 1950 on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, next to the Arizona.

To Americans, the land on which the twin towers stood is hallowed ground, a burial site made scared by the suffering and deaths of all who perished in the horrifying minutes those towers burned and fell.

And there's the rub. Muslims don't count as Americans because of what happened on 9/11. American Muslims aren't citizens in the same way that you and I are citizens (assuming you aren't a Muslim); they are guests here, and should remember their place.

The Muslim Menace Strikes

And their goal? To confuse you. Yep. Fourth Generation Warfare as practiced by the Muslim Menace, strives to confuse you by being provocatively Islamic, according to Scott Wheeler and Buckley Carson, in an article over at Townhall.

Which is why it’s no surprise that Islamists have publicly acknowledged adopting the tactics of 4GW to wage its war against the West; in an open society, we are never exactly sure who the enemy combatants are because they may not shoot at you, or blow something up. They might smile and say “all we want is peace” while provoking you and stretching the limits of your societal tolerance, leaving their targets confused.

Apparently these menacing Muslims know that we intend to maintain our free and open society, which means allowing them to live among us as citizens, invested in the same rights and privilages as any other citizens. They can then provoke us, by acting Islamic, into attacking them. At which point their buddies in the media elite will trump up stories of bigotry.

Islamists know that legal rights and protections provide them the ability to strain our security without even breaking the law, right up until the moment they commit a deadly act of aggression; and since the terrorist often kills himself in the attack, there is no prosecutorial deterrent there either.

And when Middle Eastern looking men intentionally act suspicious and provoke a response from civilians or police, they find a very sympathetic American media willing to help portray them as victims of American bigotry. Which is not too dissimilar to my experience with what should have been a reasoned, legitimate debate over the Ground Zero Mosque; . . .

Alas he wanted to have a sensible rational discussion about the need to treat American Muslims as suspicious foreigners who didn't belong her, and certainly didn't enjoy the same rights as the rest of us, and the evil media and others got in his way.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has weighed in on this issue as well (as quoted at Salon), and frankly is a lot more convincing than these guys.

“Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.

“This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies' hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

He's right; there is no rational reason to oppose this mosque unless you just consider American Muslims somehow not deserving the same civil rights as the rest of us.

The Second Great Depression

Ben Shapiro really is dumb. I mean really. I make fun of him a lot, but it takes a certain kind of idiocy to write todays article. Not because he's conservative; a lot of conservatives think that Obama is messing up this country. Nothing wrong with that per se. But . .. well just read this.

And just as during the First Great Depression, economic liberals are declaring that it doesn't exist. "The depression is over," President Herbert Hoover told a group of clergymen in 1930. "I am convinced," he said in 1931, "we have passed the worst and with continued effort we shall rapidly recover." . . .

Hoover was wrong and so are Obama and his lackeys. And just like Hoover, Obama will take measures that are economically feasible in a strong economy but absolutely disastrous in a weak one.

He does, I have to admit, point out that the tariffs passed were a pretty bad idea. But he also suggests that Obama is just like Hoover in that he is proposing Government spending and higher taxes. Except that sounds a bit like good old Roosevelt too, who doesn't appear (directly) in Shapiro's article.

If you are going to rip into Hoover for Government projects, isn't it almost necessary to point out that Roosevelt did much the same thing on a far larger scale? Hoover frankly didn't spend a fraction of what Roosevelt spent, and in fact wasn't really an economic liberal. Certainly not by today's standards.

More to the point, Shapiro even references Roosevelt at the end of his article, albeit obliquely, with "Happy Days are Here Again." Does Shapiro really believe that his readers aren't going to remember the existence of Roosevelt, the great liberal president?

Radical - a useful adjective

Cal Thomas, one of our nations foremost proponents of the "Muslim Menace," continues on that vein in his latest article. But he touchingly adds an adjective - radical - to make it clear that he's not against Islam itself. Just radical Islam. Of course even a shallow reading of his work reveals that Radical Islam is a term so broad as to include most of the Islamic world and certainly the bulk of American Muslims.

Ask yourself: if you wanted to infiltrate a country, wouldn't a grand strategy be to rapidly build mosques from Ground Zero in New York, to Temecula, Calif., and establish beachheads so fanatics could plan and advance their strategies under the cover of religious freedom and that great American virtue known as "tolerance," which is being used against us?

. . . Instead, they build their mosques with minimal opposition from the squishy politicians and elites who could stand against them if they had any backbone. And so those radical Islamists who would dominate America move forward with plans to subjugate us all to their religion and way of life.

See that sounds like it's not just Radical Islam that is the problem. Or to put it more clear, it's seems like Thomas is incapable of recognizing a non radical Islam. But on some level he recognizes that others would be upset at the bigotry of attacking Islam (not to mention the logistics of such an illogical approach), so he adds Radical as a fig leaf.

The Good Old Days

Terry Paulson's latest article is about how bad things are these days what with our dependence on the government and punishment of rich people and all.

For years, American rights have been turned on their heads. It hasn’t been sudden, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal, Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom, and FDR’s New Deal—all chiseled away at America’s founding principles. All promised a seductive social contract based on “economic rights”—the right to a job, a decent home, medical care, decent wages and benefits.

Yep - if we could only go back to the idyllic time of the 1890s. Back when American workers had no protections and few rights (except for the right to quit and go to another low paying job).

Of course in the 1890s relatively few Americans were employed by the big industrial companies. The service sector existed primarily as a collection of locally owned restaurants and shops. The percentage of Americans working for big corporations is considerablly higher than it was in the 1890s. And big corporations have historically been the ones who have treated their workers the worst. It's one thing to screw over your busboy who you employ and see regularly. It's another to screw over thousands of busboys who you don't know, you assume are either part time highschool pukes or lazy shiftless jerks, and you'll never have to see anyway.

But then again, Paulson presumably doesn't care much about the American working class anwyay; if they wanted to do they would be upper management anyway.

Two Wars

Pat Buchannan's latest article is interesting in it's frankness on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Now he is essentially an isolationist, so this has to be taken with a grain of salt, but this is pretty striking.

A majority of Americans now believe the war is unwinnable or not worth the cost, and a growing minority in Congress wants out. Some NATO allies are departing. Others are setting deadlines for withdrawal.

As for the Afghans we leave behind, who committed themselves to America's war, they will, when we depart, suffer the fate of the "harkis" in Algeria, the South Vietnamese army and boat people, and the Cambodians we left behind to the tender mercies of the Khmer Rouge.

Have the politicians, journalists and think-tank geniuses who dreamed up these wars suffered ignominy and disgrace?

Not at all. They are debating and devising a new war -- with Iran.

That's pretty accurate. And pretty damning.

Scenes from the Trenches

Steve Chapman's latest article is about duelling protests that took place in Madison Wisconson. One was put on by the National Organization for Marriage, which, ironically, is mostly concerned in preventing certain kinds of marriage (in fairness, they believe that in doing so they are protecting the right kind of marriage). The other smaller protest was held by people who support Gay Marriage. Now here's where things get confusing.

Steve Chapman apparently thinks that the counter protest was more successful. He speculates that the NOM crowd wants to provoke a strong reaction in order to better portray themselves as a persecuted minority.

So why would NOM hold a rally where it is sure of being badly outnumbered by motivated and well-organized critics? Maybe because that's what it wanted. The Summer for Marriage Tour could have been called the Come Shout Us Down Tour.

The endeavor has managed to make opponents of gay marriage look like a brave, embattled minority, even though they constitute 53 percent of the public and have gotten their way in all but a few states.

Unfortunately for them, the counter-protesters don't look quite as scary as they should for this strategy to work. Instead they look like a bunch of passionate college students. Annoying, perhaps, but not fearsome.

The upshot is that the NOM crowd will continue to believe themselves persecuted and, all evidence and logic to the contrary, will point to this counter protest as proof that they are persecuted. And those in favor of legalizing Gay Marriage will continue to believe themselves persecuted as well (in fairness they actually are generally losing the elections so far, so they probably have a better claim to that position).

A Few Interesting Points

Continuing on with the Shirley Sherrod story, lets get some comments from Jeffrey Lord (quoted by Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo), who has come down on Sherrod like a ton of bricks. Apparently a relative was beaten to death with a blackjack for racial reasons which she has described as a lynching. Jeffrey Lord doesn't agree.

Certainly the image in my head of a lynching is rope around the neck," Lord told me. "And when we really got into this, it was quite apparent to me that there was all sorts of other things. That there has to be a mob -- mob action. Well what is a mob? Is it two people? Is it three people?

This is an interesting tack to take. Basically because Sherrod described her relative being beaten to death for being black as a lynching she's a racist.

Beyond that, Lord doesn't understand that Southern Racists were conservatives and after integration they defected to the Republican Party en masse. Or to be more precise he probably does understand it but is pretending not to.

Daily Howler also has some important comments on the Sherrod situation; mostly asking how stupid we liberals are.

Blame Fox News for this whole affair, while underplaying the awkward fact that the Obama Administration and the NAACP reached the same damn-fool conclusion. Insist that this proves that Fox is racist, while failing to mention the gross bad judgment shown by the other two groups.

I wish he were wrong about this, but he's really not.

Fools Rush In

Not that I am calling Ben Shapiro a Fool, mind you. Just that it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to decided to get back into the Sherrod controversy, which Shapiro does in his latest article.

To be fair, Shapiro admits that the Brietbart tape was heavily and unfairly edited. Basically Shirly Sherrod isn't a racist based on that heavily edited tape. But the media and other sources are missing the larger context which is that Sherrod is a Marxist and kind of a racist.

But the context the media found was also out of context. The speech makes clear that Sherrod is a Marxist rather than a racist, but that she has racial tendencies nonetheless.

Apparently Sherrod has a history of standing up for black farmers. Horrors. And Obama apparently wanted to promote someone who stands up for black farmers. What an evil, evil man.

It's hard not to read this article as either making a mountain out of a molehill; Obama is a Democratic President; albeit a center of the roader. It's not surprising he would nominate at least a few liberals (and lets be clear, Marxist in the mouth of Shapiro means anybody more liberal than, say, Mitt Romney).

Life's Too Short

Dennis Prager's latest article is about how Liberals hate Conservatives and Conservatives don't hate Liberals. This is proved by the fact that a Liberal Reporter wished that Rush Limbaugh would die. Yep. That proves we are all full of hate.

Apparently liberals hate conservatives because we think they are evil, we have guilty consciences over failing to stand up to evil the way liberals do, and we are angry at Conservatives for keeping us from realizing our vision. Interesting argument.

But wait, don't Conservatives think that Liberals are evil? Aren't Conservatives upset that Liberals prevert the Conservative vision of America? Yes and yes. As for feeling guilty, I suppose some Conservatives might feel guilty at how they consistantly work against the interests of the American Working Class. But, then again, maybe not.

At the end of the day it's hard to believe that Prager writes this with a straight face; but I assume he does. He genuinely doesn't see the hatred expressed by media figures on his side of the fence. He's probably never heard this great quote from Limbaugh.

I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus – living fossils – so we will never forget what these people stood for.

Still Prager knows his audience; they love believing that all of the hateful things they say mean nothing while the slightest outrageous thing by a liberal is terribly relevent.

Holidays

Allen Hunt's latest article is a Muslim Menace article, which seem to be popping back up recently, with a bit more virulence.

We should treat the various Muslim holidays as we have the birthdays of American presidents with the singular Presidents' Day. My recommendation: we roll all the Muslim holidays into one National Muslim Day and celebrate it on September 11 each year. The New York schools can then follow suit along with the rest of the country.

Rather than working to educate us slow-learning Americans about the merits of holidays like Eid al-Fitr and the birthday of Mohammad, it seems most fitting that we celebrate the contributions and significance of Islam in America's history with one special day each September 11.

The implications are clear; the most significant thing that Islam has ever accomplished was murduring 3,000 Americans. American Muslims are not really Americans and don't merit the same protections and considerations that other religions do. American Muslims don't belong here, and we need to remember what Islam did to us and keep them in their place. We need a national day of Muslim hatred.

Pretty nasty.

Those who are Damned

I am not an atheist as long time readers know. Still Mike S. Adams latest article kind of makes me wish I were.

I guess I’m trying to say that I’m sick of hearing from the Dumb Atheist Moralist Not Engaging Debate. These people are otherwise known as my DAMNED readers.

Nice. Now of course he pretends he's only talking about atheists who misunderstand his articles; but a number of times he slips and just says atheists.

I think a lot of Christians are looking forward to leaning over the proverbial railing in Heaven and spitting on those who are damned. I also think having that attitude makes it unlikely that you will make it to that proverbial railing.

I'm not dead

I have had some minor medical stuff going on so probably low or non-existent posting for the next few days.

Also I called Elena Kagan Eliza Kagan. D'oh.

Wonder Woman and Eliza Kagan

Been focused elsewhere this week, as I had to travel yesterday, so haven't had time to look much at Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan. One of the key arguments against her is her lack of experience with the law (meaning, in this case, that she hasn't been serving as a judge). Andrew Pincus, over at Talking Points Memo, notes that historically many Supreme Court Justices haven't come from the lower courts, and then explains our recent history on this issue.

The argument seems to be that because federal judges "interpret the law and don't make it," judging is a technocratic exercise: the "right" answer can be found, if only the decisionmaker is sufficiently well-versed in the technical tools of statutory or constitutional interpretation to find it.

That overly simplistic view of the judge's role is plainly wrong. In many cases, and certainly most cases heard by the Supreme Court, there are good arguments on both sides. The language of the relevant statutory provision is not clear and the surrounding text and other aids to interpretation point in different directions; or the language and history of the constitutional provision can be interpreted either way.

Judging requires the exercise of judgment. (The similar roots of the two words is no accident.) The judge must weigh the different arguments and decide which is the most persuasive.

As I've noted before, the Conservative position on the law seems to be that there is a clear right answer to all legal issues, and that answer, convienently enough, happens to be the conservative opinion. Because there is such a clear answer, any justice who doesn't arrive at the clear and correct answer is an activist judge, legislating based on something other than the constitution or the law.

In other news, they have redesigned Wonder Woman's costume; I quite like it and predict that with such a strong and attractive design this new costume design will last at least 4 months and maybe as many as 6. That said Bleeding Cool has collected some comments from our friends on the right.

Might as well call her Obama Girl now. They should stick with the original costume. Who’s next? Captain America? How sad… :(

I don’t like the new costume. The new one has no appeal. Looks like something an anti-American might put together…

Yeah, I like that one.

Loving America

Brent Bozell's latest article shows his inability to honestly critique media. Which is a bit problematic since he tries to function as a Conservative Media Critic (fortunately for Bozell, all his readers want to hear is how bad and out of touch Hollywood is). His latest target is Oliver Stone.

Sadly, that [World Trade Center] was but a brief hiccup in Stone's career, a befuddling, out-of-character career move. In most of his movies, Oliver Stone is clearly not a fan of America, both her leaders and her policies. Think "Born on the Fourth of July," "Platoon," "JFK," "Nixon" and "W."

See Bozell doesn't undersand criticizing harshly something you love. H edoesn't understand how someone like Stone can love his country and wish it well, while also being discouraged at the choices it makes.

Which is odd because one presumes Bozell has no trouble understanding how a conservative could be disgusted with President Obama or with the sexual predillictions of some Americans while still loving America. But the thing about it is that Bozells image of America is tied up almost entirely with his conservative ideology; in his mind, to a great extent, to really be American is to be conservative. So criticizing libertines or progressives, even if they happen to be U.S. Citizens, isn't criticizing America because libertians and progressives aren't really Americans.

Ben Shapiro the Jackass

Ben Shapiro's latest article is on Al Gore being accused of being a philanderer by a masseuse.

Now, that "old-fashioned, romantic innocence" has withered away. According to the 73-page police report by a Portland, Ore., masseuse, Gore is not only an attempted adulterer, he's a "crazed sex poodle." And if any of what is laid forth in the report is true, he's also exceptionally weird.

I haven't seen a ton of writing on the Al Gore story, perhaps because most Conservatives are a bit leery of writing that particular phrase - the one where they have to admit that this story may be total bullshit. Doesn't stop young Ben though. He's happy to write his whole article, castigating Gore, praising this masseuse, and complaining that the Media is ignoring this very important story.

In related news, Salon's War Room reported that the Portland Tribune tried for three years to verify this story and couldn't. They apparently went so far as to place an ad on Craig's List, looking for masseuses who might have had a bad experience with a prominent person. So maybe they did look at this story, and, not wanting to admit that it was all heresy, decided to drop it.

So given that the story is unverified and nonsensical why does young Ben want to believe it? Because it fits the narrative that he believes in. All Liberals are hypocritical scumbags.

When the masseuse told her friends that she'd been sexually assaulted by the horny horned-owl hero, they answered her in typical liberal fashion: "suck it up; otherwise, the world's going to be destroyed from global warming."

You have to love people who are so stupid that they think Al Gore's blustering blather about saving the planet means he gets to rape anybody he pleases.

That right there shows that Shapiros hated and disdain for liberals has blinded him to reality. What kind of person would really excuse rape for environmental concerns? Well in Shapiro's mind, that's what a Liberal would do. In my mind, that wouldn't actually happen; it reads like a parody. If further confirmation of this masseuses story come forth, well, we'll have to deal with that. But for the moment it's not that believable.

Does America have Lousy Health Care?

Hard to say. Apparently a bunch of leftists think that America does have lousy health care. This is the point to Dennis Prager's latest article.

The answer is that WHO doesn't assess health care quality; it assesses health care equality, exactly the way any organization on the Left assesses it. And since the world's and America's news media are on the Left, they report a Leftist bogus assessment of American health care as true.

Yep. But this seems to be an example of Prager trusting his audience to condemn the Left without too much reflection. Because Prager certainly doesn't make any sort of positive argument about the benefits of American Health Care. He underlines two serveys that who America having poor healthcare and dismisses them as Leftist, but doesn't feel the need to make the counter argument.

I suppose because he can't; what Prager and his kind believe about the American Health Care system is that it's great if you have the money to avail yourself of it. And if you don't or are on a lower rent insurance package; one in which you are denied coverage regularly, well that's your own problem. Liberals and many moderates on the other hand judge a healthcare system, at least in part, by how accessible it is. We all share the same air, we all get the same germs. So it's in societies best interest to see that medical care is available to all.

There is a case to be made for what Prager belives; I think he's wrong but there is a case for it. But Prager fails to make this case because, essentially, he doesn't have to. Just elevate the dreaded left and trust his audience to make the right decision.

Depressing but Perhaps Accurate

Ted Rall's latest article is about how bad things are for most Americans and how little we seem to be able to do to fix things.

The great mass of Americans works longer hours for less pay. Until, inevitably, they get "laid off." Is there a working- or middle-class American who hasn't lost his job or been close to someone who got fired during the last few years? Even in 2009, when global capitalism entered its final crisis and millions of Americans were losing their homes to the same banks their taxes were paying to bail out, the world's richest people--those with disposable wealth over $30 million--saw their assets soar by 21.5 percent.

Go ahead, little leftie: smash the windows at Starbucks in Seattle. It won't stop transnational corporations from raping the planet and exploiting you. Enjoy your Tea Party, little rightie. It sure is cute, listening to you talk about the wee Constitution. "Your" government and the companies that own "your" leaders have your number.

Yeah kind of depressing; I knew that Obama would be a middle of the roader, but I had hoped for a bit more progress on the economic front. Instead I find myself depending a staunch corprotist from people accusing him of being a wide eyed radical.

News From the Past - June 24, 1930

This is from the Milwaukee Sentinel for Tuesday June 24, 1930.

Plane Restores Eyesight Lost By Mule's Kick

DU QUOIN, Ill., June 23 - (AP) - Walter Wyatt of Du Quoin claims the distinction of being the first to regain the sight of an eye as a result of an airplane flight. Eighteen years ago Wyatt was kicked by a mule and lost the sight of his right eye. Last week he went by plane to Big Sandy, Tenn. On the trip, Wyatt said, the pilot did "a few fancy loops" which restored his vision.
Physicians have pronounced the eye normal but are at a loss to account for the restoration.

Yeah I'm kind of at a loss too, but then I'm not a pilot or an optometrist.

You just have to assume those were some really fancy loops.

We'll Kill Them Until they Love Us

Townhall is going through a soft redesign right now which leads to some oddities - like today's Cal Thomas article being split into two pages, with 95% of the article on the first page and one sentence on the second page. Thomas is writing about McChrystal and trying desperately to split the difference - essentially McChrystal and his aides were right to rip into Obama but it is still against the rules. He then gets to the rules of engagement problem.

To win in Afghanistan, and make such things possible, our "rules of engagement" must change. American casualties have increased because of self-imposed restraints when encountering Taliban who hide behind civilians. You can't win a war by hesitating when the enemy is at a disadvantage. To paraphrase a familiar admonition: grab them by their throats and their hearts and minds will follow.

To clarify, Thomas believes we should kill civilians if it will help us kill Taliban insurgents. And he's kind of a wuss if he can't repeat the quote correctly (it's balls, not throat).

You might wonder how Thomas thinks this killing of civilians is going to work; the truth may be that Thomas doesn't really believe that there are any civilians in that part of the world (he's certainly written his share of Muslim Menace articles). Or he favors the black and white theory that those who are terrorists are going to be terrorists regardless of what we do. I don't believe either of those things, but perhaps Thomas does.

Your Weekly Rush - The Perils of Restraint

Limbaugh is enjoying the McChrystal storyline, and it's inspired him to come up with a way to attack those military leaders who support Obama. Apparently there are corporate generals (who only care about promotion and who will support Obama) and warrior generals (like McChrystal, who won't support Obama). That will come in handy. He then mocks the idea that soldiers should avoid killing civilians.

The medal will be yellow, and this is somebody who gets a medal for not firing their weapon because civilians might be killed. And, of course, this enemy happens to put civilians in front of them at every place they happen to be, even on the battlefield or in a village, town or, or what have you.

I wonder how Limbaugh would feel about cops opening fire on a criminal who took a hostage, killing the hostage in the process. Presumably he'd be ok with it.

Oh - and just in case you forgot what kind of sexist our buddy Rush is.

. . . there is another way to differentiate generals and actually people in general. There are womanly words and there are manly deeds. It is pretty clear which category McChrystal falls into, and also pretty clear which category fits Obama. Womanly words and manly deeds.

Yep. Class act all the way.

John Hawkins vs the Strawman

John Hawkin's latest article is about how dumb moderates are to want bi-partisanship.

Middle-of-the-roaders and people who don't pay a lot of attention to politics have made such a fetish out of bipartisanship that the most partisan political hacks in D.C. will go on and on about "unity" and "working with the other side" even as they lustily plant toe kicks to the other side's groins at every opportunity. To the moderates, this makes little sense. Why can't both sides get together, buy the world a Coke, teach them to sing in perfect harmony, and keep it company....la, la, la, la!

Gosh that does seem silly. Moderats should probably argue instead that both sides find common ground where they can, and work to improve things rather than constantly bickering.

Moderates might also point out that both parties are more interested in defeating their political enemies rather than passing legislation that would improve things.

Of course that is what Moderates actually do, but Hawkins finds it easier to make up some beliefs for Moderates and then mock them. He then points out that we are better off not passing any legislation anyway, which is certainly a conservative position.

Joel Mowbray makes a good point

Joel Mowbray opens his article with this relevant point.

Lost amid the hand-wringing over Israel’s botched flotilla raid last month and speculation about the diplomatic fallout for the Jewish state has been perhaps the most significant development, namely the resurgence of Hamas.

On political and financial life support not even a month ago, Hamas has become the face of the Muslim world’s newest cause célèbre: ending the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza.

That might indicate to you and to me that perhaps Israel acted unwisely in this particular instance, but of course that's not Mowbray's point. Rather he wants you to know how bad we all are for not remembering how evil Hamas is and how much we must keep grinding down the Palestinian people so that they blame Hamas for their troubles. Basically the Palestinian just need to accept their status as second class citizens and they will be happy.

We'll have to see how that works out.

Compare and Contrast

He assured us, as tens of thousands of gallons of oil belch out of the hole each day, he intends to hold people ... accountable! No mention of the 48-hour deadline -- now come and gone -- that he gave BP to, well, do more.

Poor President Obama -- this isn't a bit like community organizing. He must find it very frustrating.

Larry Elder, "Obama Learns Limits of Government -- Oil Spill Kicks His Hope and Change"

The other day, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked what will happen if the people running BP decline to go along with everything the administration demands of it. "The president," he replied with chilly menace, "has the legal authority to compel them to do so, and if they don't, he will."

As a matter of strict truth, Barack Obama may not have all the legal authority he would need. But punctilious adherence to the law is rarely the hallmark of American presidents.

Steve Chapman, "As the Spill Expands, So Does Presidential Power"

So is the President powerless or overly powerful? Hard to tell.

The Argument for Outlawing Gay Marriage

Maggie Gallaghers latest article is about Gay Marriage and how wrong it is that people argue that homosexuals should be allowed to get married.

For these Americans, gay marriage does not merely expand marriage to more people, it abolishes the historic core conception of marriage and replaces it with a new government-mandated genderless marriage. Gay marriage means that our maleness and femaleness does not matter, our capacity to create new life is irrelevant to the public project of marriage. Henceforth by government decree marriage will mean a commitment of any two people; marriage will become a product of individual desire not rooted in any natural order, not rooted in our history or traditions . . .

I don't know what that means except for I don't like Gay Marriage and therefore it shouldn't exist. And that's the core problem with those who oppose Gay Marriage - their argument never answers the key question; what gives you the right to say Gays can't get married? How does Gay Marriage actually hurt you?

The only answer is that it upsets traditional religious values. That's not enough. That should never be enough. And I don't understand my countrymen who say that that is enough.

Then there's this hilarious bit.

Ted Olson will talk in court this week like a civilized man. But Ted Olson, as much as any one man, is responsible for the idea that there is no real debate to be had about gay marriage, that all the legitimacy, all the arguments, all the good will and good reasons are on his side.

Yeah as opposed to those who are in favor of proposition 8 or who oppose Gay Marriage - they certainly are giving their opponents the benefit of the doubt. You certainly aren't arguing that all the good reasons are opposed to gay marriage.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad that conservatives can argue for treating homosexuals like second class citizens and then act like they are the persecuted ones, merely because people disagree with them.

Rand Paul and Segregation

I don't think Rand Paul is actually a libertarian; he chose to make a keynote address to the poorly named Constitution Party, a dominionist political party. By Dominionist, I mean that they intend to make America into, essentially, a Christian Theocracy. I don't know how you square that with Libertarianism.

That said, even if he were a genuine libertarian who believed that businesses should have the right ot discriminate, he's still kind of an idiot. Michael Lind, over at Salon, has written a piece on what segregation was actually like.

On rereading "Black Like Me" with Rand Paul's controversial comments in mind, I was struck by how very few truly public places there were in the apartheid South. Employers, subdivisions, stores, restaurants, gas stations, hotels -- Rand Paul would have allowed all of these to be segregated to this day because they are privately owned. According to this disingenuous theory, in the segregated South everyone, black or white, should have had a right to work, eat and sleep at the small-town post office or police station, because they were public agencies -- but no right to work, eat or sleep anywhere else.

Yeah, that does seem like a definition designed to protect racism.

Extinction Event

Dougles MacKinnon's latest article is a bit over the top.

Beyond liberal judicial activism and the propagandists for the far-left in the media, our welfare, security, and very existence are being threatened by elected officials from both sides of the aisle who see the rapidly descending blade and purposefully ignore it as they suicidally focus on their own selfish needs.

Were it not for the fact they are about to take the rest of us with them, their extinction would be a welcome relief.

I wonder how many on the right side of the aisle MacKinnon really believes deserve extinction. Probably just a few of the more liberal Republicans.

What's bizarre is how MacKinnon (and many other Republicanoids to be fair) can basically call for the extinction of their political enemies and then act like the aggrieved parties (MacKinnon's larger point is that Abraham Lincoln would be shut down by the PC Police if he were around today). But truthfully we should all be used to that by now; once you can believe that White American males are the most oppressed class in America, you can believe anything.

Hi Jacking Christianity

Our national discourse on religion has basically gotten to the point where both parties/movements are claiming that they represent "real" Christianity. Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski have written an article chastising Pelosi for claiming that her politics were inspired by faith.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided to follow President Obama’s lead in claiming that God directs her lawmaking, invoking the Bible as her legislative roadmap. If a conservative Republican did this, it would be the top of the news.

That last line is crybaby nonsense. If a Conservative claims to be motivated by the Bible it's strictly a dog-bites-man story. Many Conservatives can't stop claiming divine motivation for their legislative agenda. They then make fun of her for her for claiming the Bible in totally non-sensical ways.

We don’t recall ever reading, “Thou shalt require every person to buy health insurance” or “Thou shalt oppose charter schools and home-schooling” in the Bible. We’d have to rename the Ten Commandments the Twelve Commandments instead.

Yeah but there's no commandments requiring Christians to oppose health care reform or to support charter schools or home-schooling, and yet many Christians invoke their faith when taking their position. So would Blackwell and Klukowski mock these believers? No because they agree with them.
At heart, Conservative Christians have been arguing for years that Christianity is Conservative and that to be a good Christian one needs to support Conservatism. For Blackwell and Klukowski to pretend that it is the Liberals who are the aggressors in this date takes either total cognative dissonance or their just pretending because that's what their fans want to read.

Its clearly the later by the way. Because they alternate between implying that it's immoral to pretend that Christianity belongs to one party or the other and snidely laughing at the liberals pretending to be Christian.

Everything you need to know about the "Ground Zero" Mosque Protesters

At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims.

"Go home," several shouted from the crowd.

"Get out," others shouted.

In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry — were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called "The Way." Both said they had come to protest the mosque.

"I'm a Christian," Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.

But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.

From a column by Mike Kelly, Columnist for New Jersey.com (which is probably affiliated with a newspaper). Saw this at Salon's War Room initially.

Fear the Intellectual

This is the title of Suzanne Fields latest article. I almost don't need to write anything else, but lets get some substance.

Only yesterday to be called an "intellectual' was a compliment. But intellectuals no longer carry much weight in politics, in cultural salons, book clubs or the wider world of ideas.

. . . George Wallace carried four Southern states in 1968, but he's mostly remembered for his memorable description of snobbish East Coast liberals as "pointy-headed intellectuals" who "can't park a bicycle straight."

Wallace is also remembered for "Segregation Forever," I suppose. But that doesn't fit Field narrative, which is to point out that intellectuals, particularly liberal intellectuals, are pro-Islamism. Apparently we have a soft spot for suicide bombers and anti-semitism.

Fields has really gone off the deep end.

Damning with Faint Praise

David Harsanyi's latest article looks at sadness with what happened to Helen Thomas. Not that he thinks she's a good columnist; he's just upset that she got fired for speaking her mind. So far so good. He even seems to praise Thomas for saying what many clearly believe (which is my problem with his column).

Nevertheless, at this point in her career, the 89-year-old was still a columnist for Hearst newspapers. A columnist offers provocative views. You don't have to like Thomas, and you don't have to read her columns, but having a disdain for Jews in general or Israel in particular is hardly the most offensive thought that's kicking around.

Now again, what Thomas said was that Israel should essentially disband and the Jews living there should go back to Germany, Poland, and the US and wherever else they came from. Very silly point of view.

But what Harsanyi doesn't seem to grasp (presumably because he doesn't want to grasp it) is that Helen Thomas, and others, might be for the Palestinians as opposed to against Israel. Without considering the plight of the Palestinians, the position of Thomas seems inexplicable.

Dennis Prager and the New Dark Age

Dennis Prager's latest article is about the Gaza incident, in which he reviews all the mean things people are saying about Israel and replying that he hopes they are right. Among other things, apparently the media believes Israel should have let it's soldiers get beaten to death rather than defend itself. I personally think that perhaps, the media believes that Israel shouldn't have dropped it's troops on a ship in international waters.

The reason mankind has to hope that the world, its leaders, its newspapers, its so-called human rights organizations and the United Nations are right about Israel is quite simple: If Israel is the decent party in its war with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas -- and nearly all the world's countries, nearly all the world's media and the United Nations are morally wrong -- what hope is there for humanity? If the world's moral compass is that broken, are we not sailing into a dark age?

This goes back to Pragers simplistic black and white way of looking at the world. Either Israel is completely guilty or completely innocent. And since Prager has already determined Israel to be the good guys, he can't look at the Palestinians issues with anything approaching empathy. The Palestinians, to Prager and many other on the right, are nothing but animals, undeserving of even the modest kindnesses that Israel has given them, fully deserving their repression.

Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them

From Caroline Glicks lastest article, on the Israeli Raid.

The footage of the IDF's celebrated naval commandos falling prey to an Islamic lynch mob on the deck of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara on Monday morning serves as a perfect simile for the national mood. The commandos boarded the ship armed with paintball guns expecting to be greeted by hostile, but non-violent humanitarian activists. Instead they were accosted by a murderous mob.

Paintball guns? Not exactly.

The military said in a statement that two activists were later found with pistols taken from Israeli commandos. It accused the activists of opening fire, “as evident by the empty pistol magazines.”

Another soldier said the orders were to neutralize the passengers, not to kill them.

But the forces “had to open fire in order to defend themselves,” the navy commander, Vice Adm. Eliezer Marom, said at a news conference in Tel Aviv, adding, “Their lives were at risk.”

At least seven soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously. The military said that some suffered gunshot wounds; at least one had been stabbed.

Yeah, that doesn't sound like paintball guns, does it?

Not to mention the dishonesty of framing the decision of Israel to board a civilian ship, an action which lead to the deaths of 9 activists and no Israeli soldiers, as an aggressive act on the part of the activists is a bit disingenuous.

The Left and Islam; peas in a pod

I wonder if Andrew C. McCarthy has sent a thank you card to the organizers of the Gaza Flotilla. You see he's written a book about how the Left and Islam (not radical Islam or Islamist, just Islam) are two peas in the freedom denying pod. Diana West interviewed him in her latest article.

For all their disagreements on matters like women's rights, gay rights and abortion, Islam and the Left are in harmony on big-picture matters: They are authoritarian, totalitarian in the sense of wanting to control all aspects of human existence, virulently anti-capitalist, and regard the individual as existing merely to serve the collective.

Part of me thinks there's little point in pointing out the nonsense on display here. But it is sort of my job.

1. Practitioners of Islam exist peacefully and are contributing citizens in all western societies including our own. Condemning the religion as some sort of fifth column, as McCarthy does, is extraordinarily dishonest.

2. Leftists do not actually want to control all aspects of human existence; they simply want to use the power of the Government to prevent actions that they consider destructive to society as a whole. Kind of like how many Conservatives would like to use the power of the Government to push their anti-homosexual agenda.

3. It is just as valid to suggest that conservatives wish to keep the individuals weak to support another collective - i.e. the corporation. Conservatives constantly take steps to keep individuals weak and divided so that they are necessarily in thrall to Corporations.

Still, McCarthys thesis certainly would justify actions like boarding a flotilla in international waters and shooting the people on board. It would probably justify far worse actions; forced conversion for example.

Contrasting Views

Who is responsible for this serious downward spiral in the Mideast? Who else? When the Obama administration spends its first year “extending an open hand” to the murderous mullahs in Tehran, and when it fails to do anything meaningful to stop Iran’s march to nuclear weapons, when the administration stiff-arms the Israelis, and treats Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu like a pariah for building apartments for Jews in the capital of the Jewish state, the wolves of jihad gather. They scent blood. Will this be one more chapter in the lamentable story of how weak and irresolute leadership leads us into war?

We must pray it doesn’t happen.

Ken Blackwell, "Will Our Peace Prizewinner Lead Us Into a New War?"

What we witnessed in the early hours of Monday morning was symptomatic of a new degree of fatigue in Israeli governing circles. The fact that both the political and the military authorities could sign off on such an irresponsible operation suggests that the leadership of the country has given up what it has concluded is ultimately a Sisyphean attempt to accommodate world opinion. Isolation is no longer a threat to be fought, their thinking seems to go, because Israel is terminally isolated. What remains is to concentrate exclusively on what is best for Israel's survival, shedding any regard for the opinion of others.

. . . Israel's fatigue and deep sense of ostracism is, to say the least, unhealthy.

Ronen Bergman, as quoted by Joe Conason.

I find the latter more plausible, but presumably Ken Blackwell would read that as just more evidence that we should be behind Israel, no matter how recklessly they act.

Clash of Civilizations

It is to be expected that the American Right Wing and the Political Class of both persuasions will support Israel and condemn Palestine no matter the situation. Cal Thomas's latest article is certainly no surprise in this regard. He neglects to mention that the ship was in international waters when it was boarded, and he describes them as akin to the mafia; pretending to be charitable, while really out to destroy Israel. Not very surprising all things considered.

Of course, Thomas then makes this stirring call.

Again, we've seen this scenario before and surely will see it again, and again, and again, unless and until the world wakes up to the clash of civilizations too many want to ignore, hoping it will go away. It won't until one civilization crushes the other.

By which Thomas means, presumably, the West crushes the Islamic World. War without end, indeed. And as I've noted before, Palestine and the Palestinians have been crushed by almost every definition of the term. The remaining possibility is, well, genocide; but let's hope that's not what Thomas is calling for.

1964 vs. 2010

This is, of course, about Rand Paul. Joseph C. Phillips has written an interesting article about Rand Paul's mistake, but spends most of the article agreeing with Paul.

The truth is that Paul’s argument has more merit than the mushy multi-culturalism preached on the left. In a free market, private business owners should have the right to do business with whomever they want.

So that sounds like he generally agrees with Paul, and he clearly does. But he does point out that 1964 was a different time.

In 1964 conservatives sought to protect the Constitution even as it was being torn to shreds. Conservatives cautioned against a dangerous expanse of governmental power even as those with abhorrent and anti-constitutional views used the power of government to usurp the freedoms of a portion of the citizenry. Conservatives reasoned that lasting transformation could only be had through changing hearts; pubic pressure could be brought to bear and in time white folks would remit and blacks would finally enjoy equality and freedom.

Fair enough - I could point out that many Southern Conservatives (then members of the Democratic Party) were racist and thought that keeping blacks down was proper.

Ultimately, Rand Paul’s argument fails exactly where conservatism failed. It is not up to some men to dictate to other men when they shall enjoy their God-given rights. To believe that boycotts and other forms of public pressure were by themselves going to break down the racial barriers in American society is to ignore the deafening clash of the cleanliness of theory meeting head-on with the filth of reality. Theory says that government must be limited to certain specific duties and must be vigorous in fulfilling those duties. The reality is that even a limited government must be powerful enough to perform its charge. Moreover, those within the government must have the political will to act quickly and decisively when the freedoms of any citizen are threatened.

This part I find unpersuasive. Rand seems to agree that businesses have the right to discriminate, but he feels that the government should have the power to keep blacks from being discriminated against. That doesn't make any sense. He also specifically references the out of control power of the federal government that Conservatives were concerned about - but he seems equally concerned about. So are left with this formulation.

1. Businesses have the right to discriminate.
2. Government is too powerful, and should not have the ability regulate businesses they way they have.
3. Blacks and other minorities should have access to the same Businesses as the majority.
4. The Government should act quickly and decisively to preserve those rights.

Those don't really line up. I suspect that Phillips real point is that of course Rand was right, but you shouldn't say it.

Legislative Games

The Times has a great opinion piece today on the games legislatures play, in order to slow or stall bills they don't like.

This is how things are now in Congress as partisans propose mousetrap amendments aimed more at campaign smears than doing good. The pornography stunt was the window dressing on language that would cut the bill’s spending on the National Science Foundation and other agencies.

As Kent Brockman reminds us, Democracy just doesn't work.

Kent: With our utter annihilation imminent, our federal government has snapped into action. We go live now via satellite to the floor of the United States congress.
Speaker: Then it is unanimous, we are going to approve the bill to evacuate the town of Springfield in the great state of --
Congressman: Wait a minute, I want to tack on a rider to that bill: $30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.
Speaker: All in favor of the amended Springfield-slash-pervert bill?
[everyone boos]
Speaker: Bill defeated. [bangs gavel]
Kent: I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply doesn't work.

Of course the simpsons was trying to be funny; I don't think our congress critters are shooting for that.

Walter Williams Makes Sense

Not my normal position on Walter Williams, but today he's making a bit more sense than normal.

Here's Williams' suggestion in a nutshell. Start strict enforcement of immigration law, as Arizona has begun. Strictly enforce border security. Most importantly, modernize and streamline our cumbersome immigration laws so that people can more easily migrate to our country.

I'd largely agree with that while noting a few standard points. Williams doesn't seem to recognize that Hispanic Americans will be pestered and inconvienced by this new law. He also doesn't spend any time thinking of those businesses that are exploiting this cheap labor. And finally, while I take Williams as sincere when he says he wants to streamline legal immigration, I believe that many if not most of his compatriots on the right do not share that theory, and in fact want to keep immigrants, both legal and illegal, out of America. I could be wrong on that last point; but looking at some of the signs and nastiness, I don't think so.

From the "are you kidding me" column

A teacher in Alabama has been explaining angles and parrallel lines to students using an interesting hypothetical, according to Salon.

"He was talking about angles and said, 'If you're in this building, you would need to take this angle to shoot the president,' " said Joseph Brown, a senior in the geometry class.

Lord almighty.

Townhall Reader Compromise

This is nice. A townhall member giving Jessica Colotl a way out of her situation.

I can see that Jessica -being only 10 yrs old at the time- bares no responsibility for the lawlessness of her parents that brought her here illegally. Can we agree that her parents are to blame for Jessica's fix and not the USA? If so, then Jessica can stay IF she turns in her parents to ICE and any siblings who were more than 16 when they broke the law by coming to the USA. Jessica could choose to go back to her parent's home country or remain here with a provisional work visa and start the citizenship process. This way, the parents are NOT rewarded for breaking the law but their blameless daughter, who also happens to be an exemplary person, can remain. Problem: Didn't Jessica become guilty when she became an adult and CHOSE to continue breaking the law?

All she has to do is betray her parents to the authorities and she's welcome here. Great.

There are of course plenty of bloggers arguing that we have all the immigrants we need; legal or illegal. Very depressing.

Allen Hunt writes a good article

Assuming he is sincere. Hard to say though. Basically he notes in the article that a girl in Atlanta named Jessica Colotl who has been here since a child and is about to graduate from high school, might instead be deported as an immigrant.

Self-righteous overreaction describes the stand of those who vehemently insist that Jessica must be deported immediately. They see Jessica as a poster child in their campaign for mass deportation. As if a policy of mass deportation of tens of millions of illegals were even logistically and economically feasible. What was Jessica supposed to do when her parents came here with hope, looking for a better future for their kids? Remain behind in Mexico? Turn 18 and then leave the education and nation she had spent the bulk of her life in? Oh, please.

So good on you Mr. Hunt. He goes on to praise the Arizona law which I have strong doubts about (because of the racial profiling problems) but ends with a straightforward proposal.

Begin an earnest conversation now by first sealing and securing the borders. President Obama's strategy of reducing the numbers of border patrol members is a step in the wrong direction. Second, work to establish a path to citizenship for those here illegally who pass background checks and are willing to pay all back taxes and fines for any contributions evaded. Offer them a legitimate place at the back of the line for legal status here in America. Finally, set forth a cogent strategy for whom we will admit into this country and how we will do so in the future. Back that up with leadership and resources so that immigration becomes what it should be - our lifeline, rather than what it has become, our great volatile vulnerability.

That does seem in general a good approach. I'm not sure about expecting them to pay all back taxes (that might well be essentially a fig-leaf depending on how it was implemented) and Hunt doesn't spare much thought on the exploiters of these people. But in general this is an ok approach, assuming he is sincere in wanting to make it easier for immigrants to come to this country legally.

Freedom and Secularism

Marybeth Hicks has written an article, mostly about public prayer, but she wants to use that discussion to springboard onto a larger issue.

Simply put, a faithful people will resist the intrusion of the government into their lives, while a secular society will embrace government as its supreme authority. That shift is essential to the "remaking" of America now under way.

Interesting premise. I am sure there are some agnostic/atheist libertarians who would take issue with it. Liberal Christians might also take issue with it (although one presumes Hicks would simply deny that liberal Christians are faithful).

There certainly examples of Government Intrusions ito our lives that Conservative Christians seem willing to accept. For example, they don't generally believe in a right of privacy (largely because such a right would prevent them from interfering in peoples sexuality). They also seem willing to accept censorship, so long as the right sorts of people get to be censors.

They are also willing and even eager to embrace economic inequality, even when such inequality condemns individuals to lives of serfdom.

Why they Hate Us

Patrick Buchannan's latest article is, oddly enough, right on the money. He takes on the competing theories for why Islamic fundamentalists hate us, and suggests that rather than our freedoms or our wickedness, they might actually have a beef with our actions.

By Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is usually the right one. Looking at America's wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Maj. Hasan, Abdulmutallab and Shahzad decided that what we call the war on terror was in reality a war on Islam.

All decided to use their access to exact retribution for our killing of their fellow Muslims.

We are being attacked over here because we are over there.

I don't know if it follows that we should disengage; we might be pretty well committed at this point. But I think Buchannans's right in saying that our actions are what anger the Islamic World.

False Choices

Posted the title of this post before I wrote the text. Oh well.

My subject is Allen Hunt's latest article in which he invokes ol' Neville Chamberlain to suggest that President Obama is an appeaser.

Relying solely on one's supernatural powers of persuasion usually leads to delusion, failure, or worse, collapse. In fact, this tall task of confronting evil requires a strategy of strength rather than a policy of appeasement. Regrettably, the latter seems to be the bailiwick of Mr. Obama.

This subject has, of course, come up before (Most notably during the run up to the Iraq War). And it always strikes me as a foolish argument; because the argument boils down to any attempt at diplomacy is, essentially, appeasement. Rather than trying to avoid war through negotiation, we should be seeking war - presumably what Hunt means by a strategy of strength. This becomes more apparent when you read through the mistakes he accuses Obama of.

We have now witnessed a supposed “re-booting of America's image” in the Muslim world as inaugurated by President Obama's much ballyhooed Cairo speech. He and the First Lady have treated us to Muslim celebrations and declarations in the White House for Ramadan. The president has hosted an “Entrepreneur Summit” for Muslim leaders. He has issued paeans on the inspiring splendors of Islam, “one of the world's great religions.” Mr. Obama has even gone to great lengths to praise an Islamic cartoonist for creating pretend superheroes skilled in the art of collaboration and peace, skills supposedly rooted in the Koran.

The implication of Mr. Hunts argument is that rather than defending America from Islamic Extremists, Obama is instead choosing to appease them (by treating them as human beings and showing respect to their faith). But of course this is a false choice (indicated by my title). President Obama can fight terrorists while also appealing to the Muslim world.

Unless of course you see Islam as a terrorist religion and really do want us to be at war with it. That may be what Hunt wants; that's not what the President wants. And in this case, I think I stand with the President.

Nothing I can Add

Doug Giles' latest aritcle is about the bombing in Times Square.

Oh well, this column is just pointing out what everyone who can still think freely already knows to be true: Progressives hate America and will always side against those who love this nation and that for which it stands. Personally, I’d like to thank them for their antipathy toward the USA because it’s sure making me a great living as they present an unending supply of stupid crap to talk about on my show and plenty of fodder for my weekly column.

In the meantime I’m going to go celebrate my 40-year-old whiteness.

I'd be interested in how Mr. Giles is going to celebrate his whiteness. Oh and for the record, I am a Progressive and I love America.

Even for Limbaugh this Doesn't Make a Lot of Sense

From yestedays show - Rush takes on Obama's Cinco De Mayo comments.

And yesterday, this is White House Rose Garden, Cinco De Mayo, the president distorting the Arizona law and ripping it to shreds again.

OBAMA: The answer isn't to undermine fundamental principles that define us as a nation. We can't start singling out people because of who they look like or how they talk or how they dress. We can't turn law-abiding American citizens and law-abiding immigrants into subjects of suspicion and abuse. We can't divide the American people that way. That's not the answer. That's not who we are as the United States of America. And that's why I've instructed my administration to closely monitor the new law in Arizona, to examine the civil rights and other implications that it may have.

RUSH: So once again we have the race card being thrown down. We can't divide the American people that way. Of course, who is dividing America? It's Obama, with comments like this. "The answer isn't to undermine fundamental principles that define us as a nation. We can't start singling out people because of who they look like."

Yep. Obama is dividing America between those who want to, well, divide America and those who don't. If it weren't for America, America would be united in its desire to divide America.

The way to finesse this, of course, is to consider that Obama doesn't see Hispanics as American (except Conservative Hispanics of course), so dividing them out is fine.

More Townhall Comments on Immigration

From Jacob Sullums article earlier.

Exactly how do we identify the flood of illegal Mexicans flooding this country if we don't in some way identify Mexicans? Your type of political correctness is what will bring this country to it's knees.

Maybe if the legal Latino population were to actively oppose illegals... oh wait, that's like asking "moderate" muslims to oppose their terrorist brethren... silly me!

If those Hispanics would just stop being so Hispanic we'd leave them alone!

I'm so SICK of you pathetic jerk off weasels with your insane ethnic shirk and jerk crews who can't stand a minute of your emotional crap brains being assaulted in the name of your imagined collective governed group you so unashamedly slather the backside of.

I have to admit I don't like pathetic jerk off weasels either.

David Rodriguez was cited for "disobeying a road sign" after he disobeyed a road sign.

He was not arrested, he was not handcuffed, he was not put in a jail cell. He was cited for "Disobeying a road sign" after he disobeyed a road sign.

And the problem is what?

This argument is made many many times. Of course the problem is that white citizens were let off with a warning and Hispanic citizens were punished to the full extent of the law. That's seperate and unequal enforcement of the law. But Townhall readers, I gather, don't have a problem with that.

Does anyone else remember when the term "discriminating individual" was a high compliment, not an indictment for a federal capital crime? "I can discriminate between night and day" - "YOU'RE A GD TIME-IST! - ALL TIMES ARE CREATED EQUAL!"

What a gorgeous non-sequiter. Discriminating is not, as it turns out, a capital crime; a capital crime being one that requires the death penalty.

Someone's Going to Get Yelled At

Jacob Sullum's latest article is about immigration - and he takes the odd approach of arguing that racial profiling is unconstitutional and, well, just plain wrong.

A few years ago, David and Jessica Rodriguez were leaving Arizona's Bartlett Lake with their two children when they accidentally headed down a road that had been closed because of rain damage. They were stopped by deputies from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, who demanded documentation from David Rodriguez, including his Social Security card, and cited him for failing to obey a road sign.

Although several other motorists made the same mistake around the same time, the deputies simply warned them about the washed-out road and let them go. Unlike David and Jessica Rodriguez, who are U.S. citizens of Latino descent, the other drivers were white.

Sullum seems to see harrassing American Citizens for being Latino as a bad thing. Let's see what Townhall Readers have to say.

Middle Americans JUST LIKE YOU have stopped scamnesty so far, but it is an ongoing challenge against moneyed, powerful, organized special interests!

As Mexifornia residents can attest, we risk losing America soon due to the ILLEGAL alien incursion and morphing ineluctably into a third world welfare state as they vote it in.

The left is not waiting for them to become citizens-- why be bothered by that mere technicality?! They load them up in vans and hand them instructions in Espanol on how to vote.

Many RINOS/CINO'S are utter FOOLS to speak of capturing some of their votes because of purported "conservative social values."

Yeah - I don't know. In fairness most of them ignore the question of how racial profiling hurts American Citizens, but that could just be choosing not to argue the unarguable. Or it could be that they don't consider Latino Americans to be real Americans. Let's be charitable and assume it's the former.

Nazi Nazis

Dennis Prager's latest aritcle is upset at Naxi analogies, particularly when used by liberal jews. And fair enough; Nazi analogies usually provide more fire than understanding. But then he makes this hilarious point.

Third, when Jews on the Left call conservative Americans Nazis, they mean it in its literal sense -- they really do regard the conservatives they compare to Nazis as racists comparable to Nazi anti-Semites. On the other hand, when conservatives use the term, it is meant to signify non-democratic or dictatorial policies, regimes or individuals -- e.g., Seinfeld's "soup Nazi" or Rush Limbaugh's "feminazis" -- not as potential or likely mass murderers.

Get that? Liberals who throw around Nazi mean it while Conservatives who throw it around are just joking - like on Seinfeld! Hilarious.

In fairness earlier he does note that the tea-partiers seem to mean it, and he takes them to task for the pictures of Obama as Hitler.

Dishonesty

Steve Chapman's latest article takes Sarah Palins plan to shrink the Government to task.

Palin's idea, a favorite among small-government advocates, is that the best way to shrink Washington is a permanent regimen of low taxes.

Simple. Dishonest but simple.

Why dishonest? Because it avoids the real question, which is what programs are necessary. An honest discussion would determine if programs like School Lunches or the National Endowment for the Arts or Apache Helicoptors for the Military are necessary (I think they are all useful) and then determining how much money we need to acquire to fund said programs. But that would require Congress-critters and others to actually sit down and think about what programs are useful, and explain to their constituents that if they want this or that program, they need to pay for it.

As it turns out, the plan to starve the beast doesn't even work from a conservative point of view. The government continues to spend money, wracking up large deficits. And the voters are actually pretty happy with this turn of events.

Think of it this way. If you want people to consume more of something, you reduce the price. If you want them to consume less, you raise the price. For most of the last 30 years, federal programs have been on sale, and they've found lots of buyers.

It's not actually sustainable, though.

Going on the Offensive

Emmet Tyrell's latest article strikes a pretty aggressive tone.

The liberals hate the middle class. There, I said it, and I am glad. Once again I am a truth teller, in this case speaking truth to stone heads. So certain am I of the truth of my asseveration that I honestly doubt any liberal will take issue with me. Can you imagine a liberal coming forward and saying: "Wrong, Tyrrell! I love the middle class." Well, I guess I can imagine it, because liberals are effortless liars. Yet what specifically about the middle class might the liberals adduce to demonstrate their affection? The middle class' sobriety? Hard work? Love of country? Love of liberty?

This is pretty transperent. Actually I do admire any American who works hard, loves his country, and loves liberty. Unless of course what Tyrell means by loving liberty is that they are conservative. Which, of course is what he does mean.

"Look middle class, liberals hate you because you are so conservative," works great if the reader is conservative. I'm not sure it works if the middle class reader considers himself or herself moderate or liberal.

Proof of our hatred of the middle class is found in our disdain for Sarah Palin. I don't know many members of the actual middle class who can essentially quit their jobs because it's too difficult and then get paid hundreds of thousands to do a sporting show and to contribute to Fox News.

Personally I want to see the middle class grow and be more prosperous, and therefore I favor programs that will accomplish those goals. I also favor snake-oil salesmen like Tyrell being ignored.

Judges and Feelings

Mario Diaz's latest article really swings for the fences. Right out of the gate he references the Nazis, and then movs on to how liberals use their feelings and subjective morality to defend their actions.

Many policymakers hide behind the “don’t judge me” masquerade to avoid the gargantuan task of defending the foolishness they try to pass off as sensible policy.

If I were actually debating Diaz this would be the point where I would ask him "Who exactly are you talking about here? What lawmaker actually says "Don't Judge me" or some varient thereof in defense of his legislation?"

Diaz then moves on to Judicial activism with a basically hamhanded attack on judges for interpreting the law and the constitution.

All judicial philosophies are not created equal. The Constitution is one. It is what unites us all — Republican or Democrat. And we must stick to that standard.

There are very real consequences to the idea that a judge can make decisions based on what is in his heart.

As we've talked about before, the conservative argument against judicial activism presupposes that there is one right answer to judicial questions, and that right answer is the conservative interpretation. So for any judge to disagree with conservative judicial doctrine, he must be ignoring the Constitution and the Law.

Rational thought might lead one to the conclusion that if the Law and the Constitution were so clear and easy to understand there would be little need for Appellite Courts or Supreme Courts.

Resuming Transmissions

Apparently Immigration is going to be the issue of the next couple of weeks, what with Arizona's plan to crack down on illegal immigrants and Congress taking back up immigration reform. Naturally the writers at townhall are all over this.

Arizona has decided that if the federal government will not live up to its responsibility to control the border, it will. Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed a bill that allows police officers to inquire about a person's immigration status if there is reason to suspect that individual might be an illegal immigrant. The governor correctly noted that the new law "represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix."

The latest example of that failure is the Obama administration's refusal to finish the border fence begun with some reluctance by the Bush administration.

Cal Thomas

What is the response of Barack Obama, who took an oath to see to it that federal laws are faithfully executed?

He is siding with the law-breakers. He is pandering to the ethnic lobbies. He is not berating a Mexican regime that aids and abets this invasion of the country of which he is commander in chief. Instead, he attacks the government of Arizona for trying to fill a gaping hole in law enforcement left by his own dereliction of duty.

Pat Buchanan

So, why would anyone who actually wants to solve the problem suggest implementing a government policy that's already a proven failure? Of course, that's just it: What politicians want is more illegal workers to pad the bottom lines of businesses that give them campaign contributions and more potential voters for the Democratic Party. What they don't want is to fix the problem because they're worried about what's good for them personally, not what's good for the country.

John Hawkins.

So that's the argument of the week.

Salon's War Room has some thoughts on it too, saying it is a cynical but likely successful strategy.

For showing some political savvy, at least, the Democrats deserve some applause. With the election approaching and vulnerable incumbents -- not least Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of 25-percent-Latino Nevada -- getting nervous, putting immigration at the center of the national agenda seems to make a certain strategic sense. It's an issue that divides Republicans more than it does Democrats. Not to mention that, in the wake of Arizona’s new draconian anti-immigration law, getting behind reform is a way for the Democrats signal to Latino voters that at least one party is still friendly territory. Democrats are hoping that they can repeat the electoral gains them made off of California’s 1994 crackdown, Proposition 187. That confrontation helped drive Latino votes away from the GOP for years.

Democrats are probably right to think that another major showdown over immigration with an angry, out-of-power GOP will pay off, even though the bill will most likely not pass. That prospect has the conservative base freaked out about an issue of American national identity. And you know what that means: White people -- engage!

Makes sense to me. A debate on National Identity isn't going to hurt Democrats that bad, but should bring out the worst in conservatives/Republicans, and that's good for the party.

In which David Stokes Blames Obama for Stuff He's not Reponsible For

David Stokes latest article is about an anti-theist group (Freedom From Religion Foundation) that has filed a suit trying to make National Days of Prayer illegal. Apparntly it's past one legal hurdle. And who is reponsible? That's right. President Obama.

I would appeal to President Barack Hussein Obama today, to reach back beyond his Muslim, Marxist, and Liberation Theology (which is to real Christianity as anthrax is to sugar) roots and try to connect with his “inner-Lincoln.”

You see Lincoln declare National Days of Prayer, so Obama, loving Lincoln, should love them too.

A few points. First of all Obama isn't responsible for any of this. Granted he did fail to hold a ceremony on the National Day of Prayer, but Clinton never held one, and Reagan and George H. W. Bush held only one apiece in their terms of office. But this is a judge appointed by Carter, and a

He compounds his idiocy with the Muslim bit, incidentally. Just insulting and stupid, as he is throughout his article. Stokes would make a very predictable detective. "Who done it? Obama!"

Social Justice or The Bible Says what I want it to Say

Mark W. Hendrickson has written an article on Social Justice; he follows the Glen Beck mentality of opposing it.

The standard of biblical justice is equal treatment by law: “Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty” (Leviticus 19:15). Justice not only means that nobody is to be picked on because he is poor or favored because he is rich, but that (contrary to the doctrine of “social justice”) nobody is to be picked on because he is rich or favored because he is poor. Everyone’s rights deserve the same protection. Thus, nobody should be taxed at a higher rate than his neighbors, nor should anyone receive special government handouts.

So basically the Bible opposes modern liberalism; to be Biblical you need to support the flat tax and oppose welfare.

I think it's helpful here to define three terms, equal access, equal opportunity, and equal results.

Equal Access implies that everybody technically has the same access to societies benefits. Kids can go to college (if they can afford it), parents can by homes (if they can afford them), sick people can get medical care (if they can afford it) and so on.

Equal Opportunity does it's best to afford everybody the same tools to succeed. Thus a poor black kid who's talented should have access to the same educational system as a wealthy white kid.

Equal Results are of course everybody succeeds regardless of efforts or abilities - spreading success over that many people naturally implies that this success is pretty modest.

Hendrickson is going to stop at equal access, while accusing liberals of wanting equal results. This is because, protestations aside, he can't really conceive of economic injustice. If a poor black kid wants to go to college, he can work hard and earn the money to attend. If this ends up with a situation where wealthy and upper middle class white kids out number poor black and Latino kids 100 to 1, well that's the breaks. So long as it's theoretically possible for the poor to participate in societies benefits that's all that's required. And in fact, the Bible apparently mandates that we stop there.

I, on the other hand, favor equal opportunities. Or to put it another way, we as a society need to invest in all Americans not just those who have already succeeded (or who's parents have succeeded). This is more just and better policy. Yes you are always going to have people who don't try that hard or people who's capabilities aren't that great - but you will also have people who, under Hendrickson's preferred system will be lost, becoming solid and productive citizens.

The Pimp and the Prostitute

This is from Salon's War Room - apparently the story about James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles getting help from ACORN to set up a prostitution ring for underage girls has some significant holes in it. And Rachel Maddow pointed those out with a certain amount of glee.

Worth Looking at

Glenn Greenwald over at Salon has an article on this video that has been released by WikiLeaks. The video shows a helicopter crew opening fire on civilians, including a Rueters writer and photographer. It is clear from the tape that the helicopter crew believed them to be hostiles, and believed that the camera was an RPG. That said, it is pretty grim footage.

Hateful Words

Mike Adams latest article is about how hard it is to be a conservative on campus - as all of his articles are. In this particular case, he takes on a wall of hate tradition at his campus. Apparently there is a wall where people right hateful words and then spraypaint over them, symbolizing the desire to end those phrases. Well Adams thinks this is stupid - as he thinks any concerns by minority students are stupid.

You might think that Adams thinks that minority students are stupid, but I think that's not quite accurate. If a black, gay, or female student was careful to agree with Adams he'd be fine with him or her.

Anyway - even though he clearly thinks it's stupid, he intends to participate to illustrate how stupid it is, and how racist and bigoted everybody but him is.

I think the Black Student Union should change its name to something not only more sensitive but more accurate. Personally, I prefer the Union of African Students for Segregation (U-ASS). In my view, if you need to segregate yourself on the basic of race U are an ASS. And you are probably a racist.

. . . Gay. Let’s just use the term “sodomite.” They are way too angry to be called “gay.” Plus, I’d like to be able to once again use the term “gay” without having people think about sodomy.

Yeah - Adams is a class act.

Earlier he comments on homophobia - a phrase he and most of the right wing hates. You see Adams and many on the right wing want liberals and homosexuals to seriously consider their position that homosexuality is a sin and should be formarly persecuted by society. And if they just thought about it seriously, well gays would probably agree that they should be persecuted. But even if they disagree with that proposition, they should still be happy to share the public forum with who are arguing in favor of their persecution.

At least that's how Adams seems to look at it.

News from the Past - March 31, 1930

Haven't done one of these in a while. I'm forced to bring you a cautionary tale from The Bradford Era, the only paper in M'Kean County recieving the unrivaled news service of the Associated press. Don't kow if that is still true - anyway this particular Bradford is in Pennsylvania.

Attending Too Many
Church Services Brings
Three Youths to Jail

Ann Arbor, Mich., March 30. Attending tco many church services brought Clarence Hapgood, 20, Toledo, Robert Powell, 21, Portsmouth, O., and Roy C. Martin, Detroit, to jail today. At the place of first attendance, the German Lutheran church, three overcoats were missed. Police were notified with a description of the suspects.

A few minutes later, a patrolman noticed three youths answering the description, entering the Presbyterian church, all three without overcoats. He waited and in five minutes the trio came out each equipped with a good coat. Search of their room disclosed ten overcoats.

Just for the record - attending church didn't send these coat-stealers to jail. Stealing coats did.

Is Obama Evil?

Maybe but Michael Medved says there's not much point in trying to convince the American people of that, in his latest article.

Based on human nature and political history, the answer to that question ought to be obvious: Americans have often felt that our leaders make mistakes or pursue destructive policies but we have rarely (if ever) believed that they did it deliberately to damage the country. In the last 80 years, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush all got voted out of office by an angry electorate but a majority of the public never embraced the idea that these floundering presidents were actually bad guys.

He really lays in to the Republican Base, purely on practical grounds.

The same Harris Poll that showed a majority of GOP’ers think Obama is a Muslim also suggested that a full 24% of Republicans believe he “may be the Antichrist.” Why would independent, moderate or undecided voters ever want to associate themselves with such people?

He's not wrong, from a tactical sense at least. But of course I hope that Republican Party fails to heed his advice; since as dissappointing as Obama has been, he's still far better than any Republican would be.

I'm wonedering what Medved's readers at Townhall thought of his prescription.

We don't need another John McCain disaster from you Rockeffeler republcans. Take your arrogant, condescending,losing, wishy washy strategies and get lost.

Who cares whether Obama is wrong or evil. He is dangerous and is destroying America.

There can be no denying the reams od evidence and facts pointing to Obama's psychopath narcissism. You can point to Hitler's successes in building the autobahn, rebuilding German industry, or reuniting German-speakers in the Sudetenland, but that does not negate teh fact that Hitler was a psychopath narcissist, and a very popular one at that.

He [Obama ] is leading us down a road traveled by the U.S.S.R. and China and it leads to impoverishment for all Americans.

What he [Obama] is, is The Great Deceiver, the Great Divider, The Great Depressor for a destructive leftist agenda. I guess that would also make him The Great Destroyer.

Yeah Medved isn't exactly winning them over - in fairness there are other posts who totally agree with Medved though.