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A conservative news and views blog.

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Location: St. Louis, Missouri, United States

Monday, April 30, 2012

"Squeezing the Family Farm" at Canada Free Press

Timothy Birdnow

I continue my series on the Obama Administration's war on the family farm, and point to the Communist Manifesto as a reasonable explanation of the Administration's actions in a new piece at Canada Free Press. 

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/46351

Bear in mind that, while Obama may not be a card-carrying Communist Party member, he is riddled with such associations. His mentor while growing up in Hawaii was Frank Marshall Davis - poet and Marxist. He has close ties to David Axelrod, a red diaper baby, and to such Marxists or neo-Marxists as Van Jones, Cass Sunstein, and a host of others.

Here is a website that chronicles some of Obama's less than savory relations to Marx. http://obamaism.blogspot.com/

I would also advice readers to check out William Been's "Masters of Audacity and Deceit". Been follows the sordid trail back to such groups as the radical Institute for Policy Studies and shows how the radicals are at the heart of the Obama Administration. 

At any rate, one can take it as a given that Mr. Obama is at least influenced in terms of policy by proponents of Marx - and I show how the latest policy baloon floated by the Department of Labor to restrict farm kids from doing traditional chores comes straight from the Manifesto.

Rabbi attacks anti-Chrisitian rant by Obama "anti-bully"

Jack  Kemp sends this our way:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/04/29/Exclusive-Rabbi-Blasts-Savage-Anti-Christian-Rant-Westboro-of-the-Left

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a popular Orthodox rabbi famous for his writings on sex and popular culture, has blasted White House-endorsed sex columnist Dan Savage for his attack on the Bible and Christianity in front of an audience of high school students, comparing Savage's remarks to the hateful bigotry of the Westboro Baptist Church.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Rabbi Boteach said:

"As an orthodox Rabbi with a gay orthodox Jewish brother, I have endeavored mightily to reconcile the dictates of my faith with the most human, loving, and respectful approach to homosexuality. I have counseled hundreds of gay men and women of faith who seek to find their place in G-d's love amid a gay lifestyle. Such efforts at reconciliation are undone by the gratuitous hate-filled bigotry of people like Dan Savage whose response to prejudice against gays is to offer insulting and degrading prejudices against religion."

End excerpt

Boteach compared Savage's anti-Christian rhetoric to that of Westboro pastor Fred Phelps, who uses offensive anti-gay slogans at demonstrations near military funerals:


"Just what Savage feels he is accomplishing by using obscenity about the Bible at a journalism conference for high school students is beyond me. But what I do know is that the answers to homosexuality and faith do not lie either with religious haters like Fred Phelps who insult God by hating gays, nor with secular fanatics like Dan Savage who insult homosexuals by falsely portraying them as angry bigots."

End excerpt.

Boteach, who is running for U.S. Congress in New Jersey and whose most recent book, Kosher Jesus, explores Jesus's Jewish life, has challenged Savage before on the subject of monogamy, after Savage proposed infidelity as a way to avoid Anthony Weiner's fate. In this instance, Boteach says, Savage has gone beyond the realm of debate into outright abuse and hatred.

Hilary Rosen's Adoptions & the Next Step : Outsourcing Pregnancy or Reproductive Tourism

Jack Kemp

There is another side to the Hilary Rosen attack on Mrs. Romney. Rosen adopted two children and both she and her fellow lesbian partner (since then separated) chose not to carry a child within their bodies. I doubt if both of them couldn't do for health reasons. Rosen is part of a new trend called "Reproductive Tourism" or "Outsourcing Pregnancy," a method by which yuppie careerist women can now have their eggs fertilized in a Petri dish and then hire a low cost pregnancy surrogate mom in India or Egypt or elsewhere to carry the child to term. There are few regulations on this in India today. Think I'm making this up? Look up those two terms on a search engine. Also look up the 2009 documentary "Google Baby" at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1490675/ Also check out this article about a gay guy who started this idea so he could father a child with minimal connections, http://www.pri.org/stories/health/global-health/outsourcing-pregnancy-to-india2054.html   in something akin to the book "Brave New World."

How's this for a quote from the article?

Legislators may be hard-pressed to keep up with all of the new uses for surrogacy worldwide. Frank believes that surrogacy will some day be used by women who want to pursue a career without getting pregnant, or women who want to avoid stretch marks, but still want a child. Frank also points to situations where international parents have rejected children after surrogate pregnancy. Frank told The World, that people are viewing these children as products, and "we should let people be more aware that it's not only about jeans or cars, but it’s about babies."

END OF QUOTE

A woman scientist and mother I spoke to said that using an undernourished Indian surrogate raises the likelihood of various diseases and birth defects such as spina bifida.

This is a form of emotional children having children - through indirect methods. So what we have here are careerist women trying to create a child with no father, no nationality and no strong sense of belonging anywhere. And they think they can create a new upper class society based on a variation of importing children as if one were importing running shoes. No wonder these emotionally vacant yuppies cannot reproduce in enough numbers to 1) populate the U.S. and 2) create enough Democrat voters (they rely on foreign nationals, both legal and illegal immigrants, to grow their voter rolls).

Sunday, April 29, 2012

How Bad do you Want to Win, Mitt?

Jack Kemp forwards this commentary from Judson Phillips at Tea Party Nation:

http://www.teapartynation.com/forum/topics/messaging-for-mitt


Here is messaging for Mitt.  I hope he is taking notes.

First, Barack Obama is not a nice guy.   Quit saying that.  No anti-American Marxist is a nice guy.   You say he is a nice guy and he says you are an uptight jerk, born with a silver spoon in your mouth and you want to see Americans fired, starved and have all of their rights stripped away.

What?

If you start with the premise that he is a nice guy, you lose.  The drive by media and Madison Avenue are working overtime to help Obama win the popularity contest.  You won’t.

But then again, you don’t need to.
SECTION OMITTED


This is not hard.  It only takes a little discipline and the willingness to fight.  Your big problem is that you have a serious case of “Member of the club syndrome.”

You treat Obama and the other Democrats as “members of the club.”  The club is of course, the governing class.   John McCain made that mistake, as did Bob Dole before him.   He will not show you the same courtesy so why do you?

This is Fight Club not Debate Club.  You have to be willing to throw some punches and take a few hits.  You may get a bloody nose and get some blood on your freshly laundered white shirt.

So what?  How badly do you want it?
 SECTION OMITTED


This is simple.  Four words:  The Great Obama Depression.

If this is your message and you stay on it, people will vote their pocket books.  All you have to do is ask them, “Are you better off now, after almost 6 years of Democrat control of the Congress or were you better off when Republicans controlled government?  Are you better off now after four years of Obama or were you better off when the Republicans controlled the government.”

This is winning messaging.  It is simple.

This is messaging for Mitt.  The question for Mitt is, “Do you want to win?”

Surprise, Surprise! Boehner falls for it again with CISPA

Timothy Birdnow

I've made it quite clear that I think the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is a bad idea. Granted, unlike SOPA which would have granted the President a "kill switch" to shut down those who he deemed as terrorists or whatnot, this bill makes a voluntary "sharing" arrangement, but to what end? Having a social security number was voluntary at first, too, and we can see how well that worked out. 

The ostensible purpose of CISPA is to make the internet secure from cyber attacks. I suppose threats from Iran or North Korea sparked the effort. But I am not sure how this actually serves net security, and it puts in place the machinery to put government paws on the web. 

The Heritage Foundation led the cheerleaders for this bill.http://blog.heritage.org/2012/04/25/cispa-is-ready-for-prime-time/ and it was pushed by the GOP in the House, with the tan crier (John Boehner) leading the charge. It passed with bipartisan support, and a threat from the Obama Administration to veto.

As usual, the GOP stepped in the excrement they themselves had previously plopped; they derided the SOPA bill as a power grab, then write a version of their own and push it forward. Even if this bill is a good one (something I don't concede) to push it through at this juncture is, uh, tin-eared to put it mildly. The public is mad about spending, about taxes, about a host of economic problems, and the GOP is busy advancing cyber security bills that do not appear to be sorely needed. We elected those guys to come to grips with the financial mess and they are wasting time on this nonsense. And nobody is going to believe that this bill is any better than Sopa, which the GOP killed. It appears that Boehner and and his friends are merely playing politics.

This could have waited until after the election, but the clueless GOP and Speaker Boner just couldn't wait. 

Of course, now they are fighting the Democrats efforts to "improve" this bill. Sheila Jackson Lee, the Congressional intellectual powerhouse of the Democratic party, has put forward an amendment to:

http://netrightdaily.com/2012/04/sheila-jackson-lee-i-believe-in-privacy/

"have authorized the Secretary of Homeland Security “to acquire, intercept, retain, use, and disclose communications and other system traffic that are transiting to or from or stored on Federal systems”.

End excerpt.

Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, called it "Big Brother on Steroids".

But what did the fools in the GOP think they would get?  The Democrats have lusted in their hearts (aka Jimmy Carter) over such a tool, and they will naturally seek to subvert this bill to their own censorious purposes. Obama can come in as the champion of privacy but let the bill stand should it pass through the Senate (which I have little doubt it will do) and it will become law, handing government another way to close our mouths. Our heroes in the GOP walked right into this, and no doubt are still not even aware that they have poo on their shoes.

Boehner and his chums need to go. He has repeatedly been caught by surprise, time after time, and yet he keeps humming along, a sort of legislative Mr. Magoo. He is killing the coalition that put him in the Speakership. We must get that guy out of power.

Yet another gift for Obama in an election year - and another thumb in the eye of those who love liberty.


Conservative Third Party Dreams and Realities

Daren Jonescu

(This article first appeared at American Thinker.)


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/conservative_third-party_dreams_and_realities.html#ixzz1tQr6dapm

April 29, 2012
Conservative Third-Party Dreams and Realities
By Daren Jonescu


Tea Partiers and other constitutionally minded Americans for whom "Anyone but Obama" rings hollow, and who still harbor hopes of a third-party challenge to the GOP establishment, may find food for thought in a living example of such a conservative challenge -- namely, that which arose in Canada a quarter-century ago.  Americans would benefit from a careful evaluation of their neighbors' success.

For decades, Canadian conservatives fought the same uphill battle as their U.S. counterparts, though lacking the constitutional armor with which to defend themselves.  The nation moved continually to the left, and at the federal level, electoral politics was dominated by the increasingly socialistic Liberal Party.  The cultural and ideological domination was so complete that the supposedly right-leaning party, the apologetically named Progressive Conservative Party (PC), fell largely under the sway of its "moderate" wing, epitomized by its long-serving leader, Joe Clark, who, for the sake of clarity, might be described as three steps to the left of Olympia Snowe.

In 1984, frustrated by the economic fallout of two decades of almost continuous Liberal policy, and envious of the burgeoning success of the Reagan Revolution, Canadians elected the PCs, led by Brian Mulroney, to a majority government.  Mulroney, though more conservative than Clark, was very much an establishment man.  He played well in the big cities of the east and in Quebec, traditional Liberal strongholds.  He was, however, strictly a light-touch fiscal conservative, and he was not at all prepared to address Canada's suffocating entitlement programs, its economically and morally disastrous "universal" health care system, and the rest of the leftist load that had tipped Canada's scales decisively to the side of incipient socialism.

While conservatives in the eastern and central provinces remained satisfied to let the Liberals and PCs play out their little family feud, those in the western provinces, particularly Alberta, were feeling left out of the process.  They held their noses and voted PC repeatedly, but they were becoming increasingly resentful of the predictability of this routine.  (Sound familiar?)

In 1987, a faction of conservative westerners established the Reform Party.  Initially, Reform ran federal candidates only regionally, but, thanks in large part to the charismatic combination of forthrightness and principled intelligence embodied in the party's founder and leader, Preston Manning (whose father had previously been a "third party" premier of Alberta), they quickly began to gain a national voice.  In 1993, they won more federal seats than their arch-rival PCs, and finished second in the national popular vote.

However, all but one of the Reform seats were won in the west.  There were no great breakthrough victories in the most populous provinces, Ontario and Quebec, nor on the east coast.  Particularly notable is the fact that Reform had substantial popular support in rural Ontario, but this support did not translate into parliamentary seats due to the splitting of the conservative vote between Reform and the fading PCs.

The 1997 election produced virtually the same result: a Liberal majority government, with Reform winning seats in its western enclave, while suffering from vote-splitting in the rest of the country.  Principled conservatism had definitely turned a corner, but it remained very much a regional faction electorally, with minority status nationally.
Facing these harsh realities, in 2000, the Reform Party sought to "unite the right" by forming an alliance with the PCs.  The federal PCs (led again by the hapless Clark) rejected the union, although many of the party's members broke ranks and joined the new "Canadian Alliance."

At last, in 2003, the Reform/Alliance and the PCs formally joined forces as the renamed Conservative Party, with former Reform/Alliance Party representatives, including new party leader Stephen Harper, dominating its ranks.  Harper, though a substantial move to the right of the old PCs, personified the compromised conservatism required to convince the PC Party to accept the merger.  Less principled than Manning, but for that reason more adaptable to the established machinery of federal politics, Harper has led the Conservative Party to three consecutive election victories, finally securing a majority government in 2011.

Harper's Conservatives have lowered some taxes, maintained a more business-friendly environment, resisted some of the more extreme "green" economy gobbledegook in favor of promoting Canada as a major oil-producer, guided the country steadily through the 2008 recession, and adopted a somewhat more robust -- i.e., less U.N.-centered -- foreign policy.

In order to achieve this, however, the party has had to jettison most of the social conservative issues, allow Canada's socialized health care system to stand fundamentally unquestioned, step lightly around the nation's leftist federal agencies, and in general do far less than conservative voters would have hoped to dismantle the country's statist engine.

No analogy is perfect, and there are always skeptics prepared to attack even the best analogy by focusing on the inevitable dissimilarities between the key analogs.  (If the terms were in no way dissimilar, they would simply be identical; analogy presupposes differences.)  Nevertheless, if we focus on the significant areas of similarity, there are some sobering considerations to be drawn from the Canadian conservative Petri dish.

1. In order for a third party to do more than disastrously split the nominally "conservative" vote, it must earn a voice in national elective office.  In other words, (a) merely running a presidential candidate is ineffectual, unless the goal were precisely to help Obama win re-election, and (b) merely having a name on the ballot in a hundred congressional districts, like the Libertarians, provides little more than a soundproof room for the disaffected to vent their anger.

Rather than constitutionalists subsisting as a diluted faction, spread throughout America in minority proportions -- and Tea Partiers are hiding from reality if they imagine their proportions to be greater than that at this point -- the best hope would be for a narrower, more regional party, with serious and "connected" local leadership, to build critical mass in a particular state, and thus have a chance to win a few congressional seats.  This would give the movement instant federal clout, and more than merely a "protest" voice on the national stage.

(Lest Tea Partiers argue that the 2010 election proved that they can already elect their own, keep in mind that even the best constitutionalists elected in 2010 ran on a GOP ticket, and therefore earned a large percentage of their votes from middle-of-the-road Republicans who would not
vote for a Tea Party candidate as such.)

2. Even with electoral strength regionally, nationwide success for a third party is a multi-election project.  The question conservatives would have to ask themselves is, "How many election cycles can America survive while waiting for the new constitutionalist party to gain enough steam to wrest number one conservative party status away from the GOP?"

Could a third party, with the right leadership, do an end-run around this time constraint by attracting some of the recently elected Tea Party-favored congressmen and senators to switch party affiliations?  Consider that the GOP is a much stronger, richer, and more seductive establishment machine than Canada's dilapidated PCs were ten years ago.  Those who have been elected to serve within that machine are unlikely to give up the hard-won advantages they have gained in favor of a "turncoat" label, along with an assault from the establishment that would make the GOP attacks on Santorum, Bachmann, Palin, et al. look like warm hugs by comparison.  "Perhaps Ron Paul would join," you say?  That would only ensure that other elected Republicans (or at least all but one) stay away.

3. While initial regional strength would be the most likely path to electoral success, it would also become an albatross around the new party's neck throughout the rest of the nation.  The party would continually be struggling to convince people that they really did represent national interests.

True, the constitutional emphasis, which Canada's Reform Party did not have (Canada's constitution was part of what they were implicitly fighting against), would have national appeal.  But they would still be faced with persuading tens of millions of hitherto unconvinced Americans that (a) the Constitution really is the central issue of the moment, and (b) the new party would represent this issue more effectively than the long-established GOP, "the party of Reagan and Lincoln," as the establishment's defenders would claim.

4. Even if this third party managed to become the preference of a majority of "conservative" voters, the GOP, as the older party, would be unlikely simply to cede the floor.  Come election time, then, the conservative alternative to the Democrats would be at war with itself, with the GOP holding enough of its base of lifelong, card-carrying Republicans -- along with many moderate independents (who will, in this scenario, see the GOP as the comfortable "middle" party) -- to guarantee a vote-split that helps the Democrats. 

Once again, how many elections are you willing to concede to the Democrats in order to effect the tidal shift that might eventually bring victory to a third party?

5. Finally, in order to overcome the vote-splitting impasse, some sort of formal merger of the old and new conservative parties would become necessary.  Perhaps, after a few election cycles, this merger would favor the newer, more constitutionally focused faction.  Nevertheless, in order to secure the acquiescence of the GOP leadership (and its significant band of supporters), some compromises would likely be necessary in the new "Conservative Party" platform.

So while, in the end, the completed project might be more conservative in orientation than today's GOP leadership, it would probably be a more pragmatic, less principled force than third-party advocates would like.
Needless to say, things could work out better than I have described for the constitutionalist faction.  However, it is difficult to see how even a perfectly principled conservative third party, answering precisely to the purest wishes of the most committed Tea Party voter, could become a winning national party quickly enough to prevent the Democrats from benefiting from the battle in the short run.

And today, the short run may simply be too long to wait.  National bankruptcy, the nullification of the Constitution through executive fiat and judicial precedent, the socialization of health care, and the further expansion of the morally draining entitlement culture -- America is at the tipping point of irreversible decline.  Wasn't it precisely the recognition of this fact that gave breath to the Tea Party in the first place, and that led to the conservative resurgence of 2010?

The case for a third party -- a serious third party, not a sugar-coated way of abdicating one's responsibility to the future -- may have been stronger twenty years ago, when there was still time to do the long, arduous groundwork.  Perhaps, had this been undertaken then, we would have seen the collapse of the GOP into a united "Conservative Party" fold by now.  But it was not undertaken then.  And now, seemingly, it is too late.  Without a united opposition today, there may not be an America in twenty years, at least not in a form that anyone who cares about America's political heritage would recognize.

It seems that the lesson to be learned from Canada's example is that the third-party option is not feasible in the U.S. under present circumstances.  American constitutionalists must take another, more difficult route: produce a new conservative party from within the old.

There are risks inherent in this approach, the biggest of which is a tendency toward complacency when one is winning elections.  The upside of this method, however, is the increased chance of short-term electoral success.  True, this success will initially issue in something as frustrating as the compromised conservatism that has won the day in Canada.  But who wouldn't take Stephen Harper over Barack Obama today, while reserving the right to press for -- to demand -- greater infusions of principle tomorrow?

Of course, if the Democrats win this time around, all bets are off -- but that's a bridge conservatives should be hoping they never come to.

Oh, Man, this is bad...

Jack Kemp


An old St. Louis Cardinal World Series star, Tim McCarver, now is claiming Global Warming exists. This is ruining my childhood memories. Do they teach climate science in the minors?


The video associated with this piece has been blocked by Major League Baseball. No wonder. They are ashamed.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/04/28/baseballs-tim-mccarver-global-warming-increasing-number-home-runs#ixzz1tNZjyKAf


There have been all kinds of reasons given for the increasing number of home runs in baseball over the decades including more tightly-sewn balls, steroids, improved fitness training programs, and bat technology.
On Saturday, renowned Fox sportscaster Tim McCarver blamed it all on Al Gore's favorite money-making scam (video follows with transcript and commentary):

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It has not been proven, but I think ultimately it will be proven that the air is thinner now, there have been climactic changes over the last 50 years in the world, and I think that’s one of the reasons balls are carrying much better now than I remember," McCarver said during Saturday's game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals.
He then commented about some recent shots that went further than he would have expected leading his co-announcer Joe Buck to marvelously ask, “So that’s your ‘inconvenient truth’ about Major League Baseball?”
"Well," the former catcher responded, "I think they’re going to find that out one of these days, yes I do."
"That’s a theory," he continued, "but we’ll see."
So now you can't even turn on a baseball game without being propagandized on this issue.

Forget Homeland Security, Now It's About "Environmental Justice"

By Alan Caruba

It is the nature of any government to seek to expand its authority. The Founding Fathers knew this and gifted Americans with a Constitution that limits authority devolving it to the states and to “the people.” Read the Tenth Amendment. It isn’t working.

The freedoms they sought to establish and preserve for future generations are being eaten away and we tend only to hear about in individual cases when, in fact, it is so widespread we accept the injustices, the inefficiencies, and the enslavement in increments.

After 9/11 it was clear that some reorganization was needed to ensure that various enforcement and other agencies could communicate and coordinate more effectively in order to wage “a war on terror.” The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created. The sheer size of it should have been a warning.

One of its siblings was the Transportation Security Administration that currently makes taking a flight anywhere a nightmare of intrusive groping and, because one failed bomber used explosive in his shoes, everyone now must remove theirs to get on a flight.

Fifty-seven years ago, the State of New Jersey issued me my first driver’s license. For years all one needed to do was renew by mail, but after 9/11, it was decided that every license had to include a photo. A very high tech license resulted, but it also means that, if you live in New Jersey, every four years you are going to spend a minimum of two hours in your nearest motor vehicle agency standing in line and sitting around for your number to be called in order to renew.

You need bring several documents with you such as a passport, birth certificate, and Medicare card. Just one won’t do. Even though I already have a license with a photo (it was on record at the agency so there was no need for a new photo), I still had to personally prove I am who I am to receive a renewed license. In an age of computerized records of birth and residence, the whole process struck me as overkill.

After December 1, 2012, New Jersey will join eight other States to issue a driver’s license with a gold star in the upper right corner. Without it, I will not be allowed to board a domestic flight or visit a federal building. Do I feel any more secure? Not really. In fact, what I really feel is the tightening grip of the federal and state government on my freedom to drive my car, get on an airplane, or legitimately enter a building in which the work of the federal government is being conducted. This is less about security and far more about authoritarian control.

Environmental Justice

I tell you this because I doubt you are aware that the Department of Homeland Security has added a whole new layer of authority to its portfolio. You thought it was about protecting the nation against acts of terrorism. Now it is about enforcing “environmental justice.”

The DHS has added Green Police to its concerns and, if you think this has nothing whatever to do with some jihadists trying to kill a lot of people as was the case on 9/11, you would be right.


According to a DHS report entitled “Environmental Justice Strategy”, issued February 2012, it is a “commitment of the Federal Government, through its policies, programs, and activities, to avoid placing disproportionately high and adverse effects on the human health and environment of minority or low-income populations.”

This has NOTHING to do with homeland security by the wildest stretch of the imagination and yet it is, according to DHS, federal policy. It gets its authority from Executive Order 12898 and this is the way government expands and expands and expands beyond what citizens expect or request.

The results are always predictable. Ordinary people who just want to be left alone discover that the government has defined the ownership of their land and property as a criminal act.

When Chantell and Mike Sackett found themselves locked into battle with the Environmental Protection Agency that had decided their land was a wetland, they battled the EPA all the way to the Supreme Court which granted them a unanimous decision in their favor on March 12th of this year. This kind of “law enforcement” by the EPA has been common over the years, but Congress has done little to rein in its typical bullying tactics.

Now add to the EPA, the Homeland Security Department with its own Green Police empowered to protect “minority and low-income populations.” This is a deliberate effort to divide Americans from one another, inspiring racial and class warfare. It is a vast reinterpretation of its responsibilities and authority.

Welcome to the Soviet Union of America or the National Socialist States of America.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Consumption Reduction Racket

This courtesy of CCNET:

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1147/and_now_the_redistribution_of_consumption_

Raheem Kassam: And Now The Redistribution Of Consumption
The Commentator, 26 April 2012

Edmund Burke’s prescience regarding the French Revolution and the inherent nature of ‘radicalism’ – that is to say the inevitability of spending, debt and tyranny inflicted by leftist ideals – is just as relevant in the 21st century as it was at the time of his writing ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’.

One of Burke’s most crucial points in my mind is the remarkable nature of populist rhetoric and how the ideas of ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’ would result in further subjugation of the masses at the hands of Robespierre and subsequently, Napoleon.

Sold to the French in 1789 terms as, “We are the 99%”, the doctrine of maximum pricing (the ‘General Maximum’) led not only to rampant social discord as citizens squealed on their wealth creating neighbours, but further throttled the economy, the will to produce and made unfair scapegoats of those who had previously contributed the most to the French economy. Sound familiar?

With this in mind I write for you, incensed about the new General Maximum all but suggested by ’23 eminent academics’ that The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/tighten-your-belts-scientists-tell-the-worlds-rich-7679251.html?origin=internalSearch has quoted as calling for a radical ‘rebalancing’ of global consumption. That’s right. Put down that latte.

Based on what can only be described as the irresponsible usage of population growth predictions, the Royal Society has sanctioned a report that both undermines its credibility and attempts to dupe Western consumers into remorse over our ‘lavish’ lifestyles. Before we go any further, even United Nations statistics show that while the global population is set to grow between now and 2050 to over 8 billion, this will be an average at which the Earth sticks to for the next 250 years after that. More junk science and manipulation of data thus ensues.

The report suggests, like the farcical carbon trading scheme, a pseudo-market in consumption trading, albeit on a voluntary basis (for now – we know it never stays that way). Apparently, Westerners or those in developed nations should be expected to level their consumption and then reduce it so that those in developing countries can pick up the slack and have their own era of growth. But this is the very kind of folie à deux that modern scientists pass along – usually on the basis that ‘it sounds about right’ to those less in the know, or the public at large. This 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' attitude reduces economics from a science to idealism and must be rejected.

This kind of Bolshevist propaganda (there, I said it) is predicated on the idea of finite resources, one that these very same scientists would tell you we don’t have to stick to if we switch to ‘sustainable’ living and renewable resources? So which is it? To the informed moderate, the solution lies somewhere in-between, with natural resources playing a significant role up until the advent of secure, safe, affordable and technologically advanced energy and food creation methods. Raising the prices of natural resources in order to make renewables look cheap is not a morally sound option.

This also applies to food and other resources. Some people are already thinking up ways to endow Earth with more http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17835607 to supply growing demand while the Royal Society simply wants to shrink demand altogether. This is backwards economics supported by unaccountable non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like WWF who have recently taken to telling people how to eat. http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Manufacturing/WWF-slams-government-on-sustainable-food

For developing economies to grow, it does not require developed economies to give up their prosperity or growth but rather for developed countries and their partner NGOs to release their strangle hold from the throats of developing nations. From the common agricultural policy to attempted ‘green’ mandates and blocking routes to international markets for developing nations who fail to adhere to arbitrary standards, the developed world has much blood on its hands.

Now the anti-growth lobby not only want you to curtail your own consumption to attempt to ‘right’ this wrong imposed by you and your taxes in the first place – but they also want to limit the growth of nations so as to reflect a more ‘hospitable’ planet.

There was a time when pioneering and ingenuity was rewarded. Today we seem to have regressed back to 1789, demonising market-driven growth and attempting to replace it with tick boxes and failed economic and development theories. Just yesterday The Independent publicised another curtailment on the development of fracking for shale gas in the United Kingdom – a strategy that will leave us reliant on foreign energy sources, entangled in foreign wars and most pertinently to you and I – with much higher energy prices.

In a final blow to common sense, the Royal Society reports that ‘GDP is a poor measure of social well-being and does not account for natural capital’. Yes – that statement does makes as little sense as it first appears. A further explanation lies in the fact that this is yet another organisation that partly relies on government subsidy to promote an anti-growth agenda as best reflected in the below video which has gone viral on YouTube in the past few days. They want countries to be gauged by their green credentials and wind farms rather than per capita output.

The society boasts that Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein, Dorothy Hodgkin, Francis Crick and James Watson were life members. It is my contention that these innovators and pioneers would be embarrassed of the pessimistic approach taken by modern scientists, many of whom see themselves as activists and are indeed children of ideology rather than professionals with a commitment to the scientific method.

The new ‘redistribution of consumption’ idea will in no way lead to enhanced economic growth in the developing world, as shrinking and protecting our economies will leave them no one to trade with. The best thing the West can do for the developing world is to lower barriers to entry, scrap targets and mandates and give innovators around the world a chance to bring about a new industrial revolution.

If Only!

Dana Mathewson

No comment!

http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2012/04/27/#006504

Friday, April 27, 2012

Internet Censorship Returns

Timothy Birdnow

SOPA, the internet power grab that failed a while back, has returned. Instead of Lie SOPA we have the CISPA kid.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/apr/25/piracy-act-reborn-as-cispa/

The Left will never give up on controling the internet. The internet is the one place where opposition to their plots arise, and if they can get it under their thumbs they will once again hold a monopoly on the dissemination of information. They will keep trying.

And we must keep fighting.

Egypt ok's sex with dead wife for six hours

Jack Kemp forwards this:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/04/islamic-egypt-plans-farewell-fornication-law-so-husbands-can-have-sex-with-dead-wives-and-marriage-a.html

Thursday, April 26, 2012
Islamic Egypt Plans "Farewell Fornication Law" so Husbands can have sex with dead wives and marriage age lowered to 14
I told you so, but even I couldn't predict this.



More of the colossal fallout from Obama's "cosmic wager" on Islamic groups taking over Egypt. This is the left's idea of "freedom." How they loved this revolution. Media mea culpa? Never. Don't expect the media to clue America in on another unprecedented Obama failure.
Outrage as Egypt plans 'farewell intercourse law' so husbands can have sex with DEAD wives up to six hours after their death Mail Online By Lee Moran 26 April 2012
Egyptian husbands will soon be legally allowed to have sex with their dead wives - for up to six hours after their death.
The controversial new law is part of a raft of measures being introduced by the Islamist-dominated parliament.
It will also see the minimum age of marriage lowered to 14 and the ridding of women's rights of getting education and employment.

Controversial: The 'farewell intercourse' law is part of a raft of measures being introduced by the Islamist-dominated parliament


Egypt's National Council for Women is campaigning against the changes, saying that 'marginalising and undermining the status of women would negatively affect the country's human development'.
Dr Mervat al-Talawi, head of the NCW, wrote to the Egyptian People’s Assembly Speaker Dr Saad al-Katatni addressing her concerns.


Egyptian journalist Amro Abdul Samea reported in the al-Ahram newspaper that Talawi complained about the legislations which are being introduced under 'alleged religious interpretations'.
100,000 women undergo brutal genital mutilation illegally in Britain (and some of the victims are as young as TEN)
The subject of a husband having sex with his dead wife arose in May 2011 when Moroccan cleric Zamzami Abdul Bari said marriage remains valid even after death.
He also said that women have the right to have sex with her dead husband, alarabiya.net reported.
It seems the topic, which has sparked outrage, has now been picked up on by Egypt's politicians.

Outrage: Egyptian husbands could soon have sex with their dead wives if a new law is approved (file picture)
TV anchor Jaber al-Qarmouty slammed the notion of letting a husband have sex with his wife after her death under the so-called 'Farewell Intercourse' draft law.


He said: 'This is very serious. Could the panel that will draft the Egyptian constitution possibly discuss such issues? Did Abdul Samea see by his own eyes the text of the message sent by Talawi to Katatni?



'This is unbelievable. It is a catastrophe to give the husband such a right! Has the Islamic trend reached that far? Is there really a draft law in this regard? Are there people thinking in this manner?'
Read the rest
Flashback January 2011:

As I predicted by Atlas in January 2011, the Islamic supremacist killers have swept the elections in Egypt.



Even then the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader was ululating"Prepare for War with Israel"
How the left was deriding me for questioning big media's narrative of freedom lovers and democracy (here, too). So why isn't this splashed across the newspages, front pages and broadcast news ledes across the country? Instead, these spineless, gutless wonders slithered back under their rocks.

Frank Gaffney’s Warning – and Video Lessons – for America

Jack Kemp

On the morning of April 24th, Frank Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center For Security Policy, held a live public gathering and online briefing in Washington to discuss his latest project. Gaffney’s organization has produced a ten part video course on the Muslim Brotherhood in America which he also narrates. This free ten part course, lasting around ten hours, can be accessed at www.muslimbrotherhoodinamerica.com. It explains why we are not winning the war against jihad in America today and names names of those responsible for the current situation.

Preceding Mr. Gaffney’s main talk was Harry E. Soyster, a retired U.S. Army General and member of Gaffney’s research team. He pointed out that the CIA’s published Book of World Facts (and trends) didn’t even mention religion as a significant factor in politics and thus is quite myopic in its worldview. . It was also mentioned during this gathering that a senior State Department had said “the war on terror is over” since we have “killed most of Al Qaida.” http://www.dailypaul.com/228564/obama-says-that-war-on-terror-is-over-now-can-we-fire-the-tsa-repeall-patriot-act  The General also mentioned was that in Italy today, crucifixes are being removed from all public places so as not to offend Muslims. Gen. Soyster recalled, in years past, having to register a car in Italy and going to a police station where there was a crucifix on the wall, as it was considered a normal part of Italian culture. Speaking about both Italy and the U.S., he concluded that with the attacks on our culture, the government refuses to look at the true situation and thus limit (hinder) themselves and stop any chance of victory (in this profound culture war).

Frank Gaffney then took the podium to give a basic refutation of a prevalent myth today, stating that although we can eliminate a number of semi-literate jihadists overseas, the major thrust of the jihadists now in America is to engage in a civilizational jihad. This stealth jihad currently overshadows the violent acts of such people as Nidal Malik Hasan at Ft. Hood or Faisal Shahzad who attempted to set off a bomb in Times Square in New York. Gaffney is talking about a civilizational jihad consisting of lawfare, multiple court cases used to financially drain defendants and inhibit free speech; “insidious informational dominance” that results in Americans imposing a doctrine on ourselves of not offending organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood as they attempt to impose demands of silence at the expense of our Constitution. Also widespread is a civilizational jihad technique of Takiya – deception – claiming attempts to influence and change our laws and culture aren’t what they clearly are. Mr. Gaffney stated plainly that the Muslim Brotherhood’s objectives are indistinguishable from those of Al Qaida. In fact, he called civilizational jihad “pre-violent” and not merely “non-violent.”

The briefing crowd was then showed a fifteen minute video executive summary of the ten part online video course on The Muslim Brotherhood in America which touched upon a number of subjects, and was narrated by The Center For Security Policy’s President.

The first part was a criticism of the constant apologies one sees offered to jihadists, particularly by our higher military officers. Also there was mention that U.S. soldiers themselves are “taught to talk in submissive terms” about Islam. Nidal Malik Hasan’s attack at Ft. Hood was classified by the government as “workplace violence,” to give an example.

Gaffney then identified Grover Norquist, the tax protester and associate of Abdul Rahman Al-Amoudi, as one of the enablers of the Muslim Brotherhood in their efforts to influence the American government leadership at the time of time of the George W. Bush administration. This type of influence has continued under the Obama administration with the placing of Muslims who advocate civilizational jihad in high places to advocate policies that do not speak the truth of the Muslim Brotherhood’s self-professed programs of wanting to change America to a sharia compliant state along with continued attempts to normalize the suppression of free speech as it relates to jihadists. 

In the final part of the fifteen minute overview film, Gaffney discusses the last of the ten part video course which goes into some detail about what can be done by individuals and groups to stop this assault on our values by civilizational jihad. There are listings of (re)sources at other websites given in that lesson. At the conclusion of the video preview, Mr. Gaffney mentioned that today the New York City Police Department is being attacked politically, that the Muslim Public Affairs Council is now “educating” the government and calling on Attorney General Holder to investigate the NY Police Department. One would assume the offense of the NYPD is daring to investigate, find,   report and act on jihadist activities.

“We have to start to understand. It is our purpose to start this debate,” Mr. Gaffney said in concluding his prepared remarks. And this was followed by questions by those in attendance and some online participants.

Someone asked about Huma Abedin, the member of a Muslim Brotherhood affiliated group, wife of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, and current political confidant of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Frank Gaffney replied that because he has no subpoena power, he is not sure what she is doing, but he knows from public records that Hillary Clinton just gave $1.5 billion to the current post-Mubarak government of Egypt.

The next question, though provocative, was treated seriously by Mr. Gaffney. It was asked whether the film and the briefing was a slander against Muslims. Gaffney replied that wasn’t the case and he knew that there are millions of Muslims who don’t want to live under sharia and came to the U.S. to get away from sharia based governments. He further stated that during the Cold War, a person’s loose association with communists was considered enough to make them suspect but that current definitions of what constitutes a jihadist are not as strict. Gaffney said that he hoped his ten part video course will be seen as a legitimate inquiry into the nature of the situation today. Something not mentioned in Mr. Gaffney’s reply was that his Center for Security Policy was a participant and sponsor of the early March public show of support by moderate Muslims in favor of the New York City Police Department and their Commissioner Ray Kelly, an event lead by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser.  In fact, Mr. Gaffney’s Executive Vice President, former Congressman Fred Grandy, was a participant at that event, as I reported in American Thinker.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/03/american_muslims_show_support_for.html#ixzz1oLRIccLT 

“To the extent that we ignore the connections of these groups we are insuring our government’s defeat in civilizational jihad,” Gaffney added. He further stated that the Justice Department has ordered the FBI to purge documents that “offended” Muslim groups because of complaints from the Muslim Brotherhood, thus making the training that FBI agents receive less detailed as to various past facts uncovered and conclusions made, despite whose feelings might be allegedly hurt.

A question was posed by someone listening on the internet in Kansas, asking whether the State Department should classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a hostile foreign power, essentially a terrorist organization.  Gaffney replied that that is his own recommendation.

Another question lead to a detailed discussion of a stealth jihad tactic known as having an ‘Interfaith Dialog.” This often extends the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood into churches and leads to changes in how churches act and perceive the Brotherhood. There was also a discussion of schools that require young Americans to pretend they are Muslims for a period of time, an indulgence given to no other religion in our secular schools.

The question of how sharia is being addressed in American law schools got a response from Mr. Gaffney in which he stated (Supreme Court Justice) Elena Kagan has been a major promoter of sharia financial education in law schools. This lead to another discussion of a War on Women in America caused by courts in the U.S. supporting a sharia compliant decision in 23 of 27 cases brought so far. New Jersey had a famous – one could say infamous – case where a woman was being raped and beaten by her husband and the (family) court upheld the practice because it was part of sharia cultural practices, refusing to grant a restraining order against her Moroccan husband.  http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/05/advocates-anti-shariah-measures-alarmed-judges-ruling/

One of the final questions asked of Mr. Gaffney was all but a stealth jihad act in itself. Someone inquired whether sharia law was similar to Orthodox Jewish Halacha Law, both having many strictures. Rather than dismissing this out of hand, Gaffney addressed this with an answer formulated by David Yerushalmi, an Orthodox Jewish attorney he works with. Halacha, Gaffney stated, does not advocate the overthrow of the government and requires submission to the secular Law of the Land. What went unsaid was that this is very different than sharia law which seeks to establish a caliphate and make sharia the Law of the Land, negating the U.S. Constitution. I believe Mr. Gaffney answered this question more so for the audience listening in on the internet and for the other people in the room, rather than for the questioner who appeared to attempt to advance a false equivalence between the two religions’ laws.

Another of the final topics mentioned was the original prosecutorial intention of the successful 2007-2008 Holyland Foundation case convictions, namely for that case to be a first step in further investigations and trials. But Attorney General Holder has been unwilling to investigate or bring to trial anyone else in a Phase Two follow-up.

Among these final remarks, Mr. Gaffney made a plea for his cause in relation to the upcoming U.S. elections. He asked if we, as Americans, want more submissions to sharia or do we want something different. What he didn’t say is what I will now add.

It would be too easy to assume that one political party is automatically better in regard to fighting a civilizational jihad than the other party. In fact, the extent of the attack on our society’s institutions in the name of (our alone) tolerance has not been fully understood by either political party’s leadership. It is up to all of us to be, as Thomas Jefferson said, eternally vigilant as the price of our liberty. And this issue will not go away if your favorite political party wins in November. There will still be much to do to keep our Republic.

Sandra Fluke is Engaged (?!)

Jack Kemp

One wonders how a woman needing $3000 worth of birth control pills a year while attending law school full time finds the time and motivation to be involved with just one person.

And then there's this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/sandra-fluke-engaged-man-fox-news-monica-crowley_n_1456564.html?ref=mostpopular

Fox News' Monica Crowley reacted to news that Sandra Fluke is engaged by tweeting "To a man?" on Thursday.

Fluke, a Georgetown law student, stepped into the national spotlight when Rush Limbaugh attacked her as a "slut" and a "prostitute" for advocating employer-covered contraception. On Thursday, it was announced that Fluke is engaged to her long-time boyfriend.

END

Pair this remark with Ann Coulter's saying that Sandra Fluke's ugly hairstyle was a sufficient birth control device all by itself, and I only have one thing to add to the two conservative blonde bombshells: You Go, Girls!

Thursday, April 26, 2012

That Dog Won't Hunt

Jack Kemp

What does Obama call the dog on top of Romney's car as he drove down the highway?

Fast food.

Buchanan sits down for one hour PJTV interview

Jack Kemp

Peter Robinson sits down to talk with Pat Buchanan on PJTV for a one hour internet video interview where they talk about Buchanan's book "Suicide of a Superpower" and related political issues This is a very stimulating and informative talk and well worth an hour of your time.

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=174&load=6875

Emily Herx fired for In Vitro Proceedure from Catholic School; Freedom of Employment Trumps Religion

Timothy Birdnow
The liberal War on Christianity continues with this story kindly presented by the Huffington Post; a Catholic school teacher was sacked for attempting to get pregnant using in-vitro fertilization techniques, and is suing the diocese of Ft. Wayne/South Bend Indiana.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/catholic-school-ivf_n_1453524.html?1335386848&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-nb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D155337

In-Vitro fertilzation is banned by the Catholic Church, because it results in the spontaneous abortion of many fertilized embryos in the process. In the in-vitro process a clutch of eggs from the woman is mixed with a sample of the man's sperm in a laboratory (the so-called test-tube babies) and the fertilized embryos are then inserted in the woman's womb, with the hopes that one or more will attach to the walls and begin growing. Often this leads to multiple births, but just as often it leads to nothing happening, as none of the fertilized eggs can find a toehold in the mother and are spontaneously aborted. Since the Catholic Church teaches that life begins at conception it means the deaths of numerous nascent human beings. As a result, the Church maintains a ban on the proceedure.

Huffpo naturally presents the story with the fired teacher - Emily Herx - as the victim of a medieval institution hostile to women.

But since when does a person's right to employment trump one of the enumerated rights of the Constitution?  The Constitution states quite plainly "Congress shall make no law... Concerning the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  Nowhere is employment mentioned in the Constitution, despite the wishes of the Progressive wing of America; a 'right to work" simply does not exist except as infered (much like the right to an abortion was infered from an infered right to privacy.) 

So sorry, but enumerated trumps infered, or should.

Catholic schools exist to teach religion to their students. If parents want to expose their children to a secular environment or a multiplicity of viewpoints they are entirely free to send their kids to the public schools, which are supported by property taxes socked to property owners, some of whom never benefit from this "service" (I myself never attended a public school and do not have children, yet pay handsomely for that particular honor anyway.)  Parents choose to send their children to a religious school despite greater costs to themselves to expose them to the particular religious beliefs of their faith. As a result, the school has every right to impose certain standards on their teachers, standards that conform to the tenets of their faith. 

A Catholic school has every right to refuse employment to someone who is openly in violation of those tenets. An openly homosexual person, for instance, or a person who uses drugs, or an open advocate of abortion would all be people they could refuse to employ. Had Emily Herx done this very quietly I imagine nothing would have been said; I suspect she made a big point of telling everyone she was openly violating Church teaching. What were they supposed to do?

The Liberals keep trying to gin up this "war on women" scenario during this election cycle to frighten women into supporting Barack Obama, and this is but another flaccid attempt to stoke the fires of the sexual divide.

What does the Constitution say on freedom of religion? Let's look at the actual language:

http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04.html

"ARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens."

End quote.

As you can see, there is separation of Church and State, and the school from the Church, so the Church has absolutely no right to impose it's morality on any employee working in a school run by said Church.

Oh, wait; that's the Soviet Constitution of 1936, the one promoted by Joseph Stalin.

The actual clause we are looking for is the Establishment Clause:

"Congress shall make no law concerning the establishment of Religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Thomas Jefferson described that as a "wall of separation" between Church and State in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Church. He was trying to reassure the devout folks at Danbury that the new U.S. government would not be able to come and take away their right to educate their children as they saw fit, or to oppress their freedom of religion in any other way. It is a negative right, one of those that Barack Obama finds so offensive; it restricts what government can do, not what the churches can do.

And again, there is no fundamental right to employment enumerated in the Constitution. Well, it's there in that 1936 document:

"ARTICLE 118. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance With its quantity and quality.
    The right to work is ensured by the socialist organization of the national economy, the steady growth of the productive forces of Soviet society, the elimination of the possibility of economic crises, and the abolition of unemployment.

    ARTICLE 119. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people."

End excerpt.

America is increasingly falling into line with the Soviet Constitution, and many Americans actually seem to confuse this document with our own founding charter.

But we shouldn't be surprised; that is the work of the public schools, of the vaunted free education bequethed to us by John Dewey. After all, it states quite plainly in the Constitution:

"ARTICLE 121. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native Ianguage, and by the organization in the factories, state farms, machine and tractor stations and collective farms of free vocational, technical and agronomic training for the working people."

End excerpt.

Golly; who could argue with that?




"

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Not Besties; a Boycott of CAIR Loving Bestbuy

Jack Kemp forwards this:

RadicalIslam.org has posted a petition which calls on people to boycott "Best Buy" for financially supporting CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations).

CAIR was labeled by the federal government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a “charity” shut down for serving as a fundraising arm for the Hamas terrorist group.
Click here to SIGN THE PETITION http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/bestbuy and let Best Buy know that you won't stand to have profits from your purchase used to promote radical Islamic causes.

After you have signed the petition, make sure to "LIKE" the petition page and send a link to it to your friends.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

James Lovelock Retreats on AGW Theory

Timothy Birdnow

The Global Warming Policy Foundation forwards this MSNBC article in which James Lovelock, father of the Gaia hypothesis and the Greenest of the Gang Green, has done an about-face, admitting he was wrong.

This is rather like the Pope saying Christ is a myth! An astonishing development!

Here it is:

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11144098-gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-i-was-alarmist-about-climate-change


Ian Johnston, msnbc.com

James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.


British environmental guru James Lovelock, seen on March 17, 2009 in Paris, admits he was "alarmist" about climate change in the past.

Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared.

He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”

However, the professor admitted in a telephone interview with msnbc.com that he now thinks he had been “extrapolating too far."

End excerpt.

I had predicted that the scientific community would begin walking this thing back, and I have been proven spectacullarly right!





Read the whole astonishing thing!

Is Zimmerman America's Dreyfus?

Dana Mathewson

I received this from "Friend Eddie."

http://thedailybell.com/3818/Anthony-Wile-Is-Zimmerman-Americas-Dreyfus

by Anthony Wile

I've been tracking the George Zimmerman case and it does seem to have some surface parallels to the infamous Dreyfus Affair.

For those of you who may not know, Dreyfus was a Jew who was accused of passing French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. He was declared guilty and sent to Devil's Island in French Guiana where he spent almost five years.

In 1896, evidence was unearthed that a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy may have been the one passing information but that evidence was suppressed and Dreyfus's conviction was sustained.

It took many more years but Dreyfus was eventually set free. He was reinstated as a major in the French Army and served throughout World War I, eventually reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Regardless of whether Esterhazy was an agent of a greater power or whether the affair itself was orchestrated, the controversy surrounding Dreyfus was surely indicative of larger issues surrounding France at the time.

The issue then was anti-Semitism. And while modern France has in a sense moved on, it remains a society riven by class conflicts and economic inequalities that are either glossed over or sanctioned by law.

The French Revolution itself stands athwart the American revolution that was fought somewhat within a republican ambit, thanks to the framing of thinkers and visionaries like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson.

The American Revolution's espoused aim was individual freedom. Unfortunately, the French Revolution was evidently influenced by the Age of Enlightenment and the Rousseau-like vision that humankind could be perfected by the proper application of logic and scientific thought.

The medium that was to provide this transformative grace was the government itself, in this the case a "republican" government that was created out of the terror of the Revolution and the busy bloodletting of the guillotine.

French society, in my view, has never entirely recovered from the Age of Enlightenment and still habitually looks to government to provide both solutions and economic succor.

In fact, they're apparently about to elect another socialist to the presidency and that's not going to end well, either. History continues.

And it continues in America, too, which began as a republic but is now surely turning into something else. The alphabet soup of American spy agencies as well as Draconian, authoritarian legislation now issuing out of Washington, DC, tells us that the formal US legislative process has gone badly wrong.

The US is surely an authoritarian state these days. There are millions on the government payroll, thousands of government spies and US official institutions are growing more and more frightened of their own people. The US Department of Homeland Security recently placed an order for hundreds of millions of hollow-point bullets. Homeland Security is a DOMESTIC agency.

Empire was achieved after World War II, but all empires eventually oppress their own citizens as well as those in other countries. That seems to be what's happening today.

Empires by their nature are pathological societies. Fear is a paramount signature of empires, along with corruption at the top, public shows of immorality and a general, evolutionary breakdown of civil society.

This is because empires substitute the rule of law for the discipline of private markets. Societies often begin anarchically, with private law and private morality enforced by the culture itself.

But over time, the private nature of society is gradually replaced by "law" and government mandates. What was once voluntary becomes coercive and people's behaviors become regulated by bureaucracies rather than by internal codes of behavior.

Within this context, society itself becomes increasingly unmoored. Once moral values have evolved into legal codicils, social mores become public passion plays. This is what's happening now with the Zimmerman mess.

Just as with the Dreyfus Affair, individual acts are being imbued with larger, societal characteristics. This can only happen in a society where the government has grown so large and intrusive that people are used to projecting their own problems and prejudices onto public events.

Once the private has become the public, it is relatively easy for government-controlled media to imbue almost any incident with moral and cultural power. In fact, in a healthier society such transformative conversations would not be possible. People would not put up with it.

But in a society where the power elite has worked relentlessly to make government the arbiter, such a trick is much easier to pull off. People have been trained to look to government for moral and legal insights.

In such societies, people no longer look inward – they've lost the habit of introspection. Instead, government itself sets the parameters of behavior and creates the larger societal conversation as well.

I would argue this is what's happening in the Zimmerman case. People are projecting their own prejudices and belief systems onto the case.

If Zimmerman is guilty, it's because he saw a young black man, assumed he was up to no good and shot him. If he is innocent, it's because he was attacked by the young man and shot him in self-defense.

I won't speculate on Zimmerman's guilt or innocence here. My point is only that the amount of attention being paid to the case and the heightened emotions it arouses may tell us more about the current state of the US union than about Zimmerman himself, or his actions.

The US is a pretty miserable place right now with unemployment between 20 and 30 percent and food stamp usage soaring well beyond 40 million. People are looking for outlets for their frustration, and the Zimmerman affair provides one.

In this sense, it is perhaps a window into the collective psyche of the American people. The mechanism itself – this too-public dialogue about an issue that in another place and time would have been localized – is discouraging.


Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

The Film Industry's Selective Bravery

Jack Kemp

(This ran first at American Thinker http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/04/the_film_industrys_selective_bravery.html)

In Brooke Goldstein's and Aaron Meyer's book "Lawfare: the war against free speech," there is a reference concerning perceived Islamist pressure on the motion picture industry that lead to a significant case of self-censorship.

Goldstein and Meyer quoted The Guardian, which stated in 2009 that:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/03/roland-emmerich-2012-kaaba

BEGIN QUOTE

He blew up the Empire State Building and the White House in Independence Day, sent a giant monster careering through the heart of Manhattan in Godzilla and destroyed the famous Hollywood sign in The Day After Tomorrow. But it seems there are places even Roland Emmerich will not go - the German film-maker has revealed he abandoned plans to obliterate Islam's holiest site on the big screen for fear of attracting a fatwa.

For his latest disaster movie, 2012, the 53-year-old director had wanted to demolish the Kaaba, the iconic cube-shaped structure in the Grand Mosque in Mecca that Muslims the world over turn towards every day when they pray and which they circle seven times during the hajj pilgrimage.

But after some consideration, he decided it might not be such a smart idea, after all.

"I wanted to do that, I have to admit," Emmerich told scifiwire.com. "But my co-writer Harald [Kloser] said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right.
END OF QUOTE

The Huffington Post's Popeater website also quoted Emmerlich as saying:
http://www.popeater.com/2009/11/06/2012-roland-emmerich-islam/

BEGIN QUOTE

Fans of disaster movies shouldn't fear that Emmerich is losing his edge. The director, who did include a destruction shot of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, pushed plenty of other buttons. "Because I'm against organized religion," Emmerich explained.

"The whole Vatican kind of tips and kind of rolls over the people. It said something, because in the story, some people ... believe in praying and prayer, and they pray in front of the church, and it's probably the wrong thing, what they would do in that situation."

END OF QUOTE

So the next time someone from the motion picture industry - or one of their fans (be they from the media or just a movie buff) - talks about how brave, edgy and willing to "push the envelope" major film makers are, tell them about "2012" versus itself or "Independence Day." Ask them why Roland Emmerich refused to show a scene where the Kaaba was destroyed while he had no problem with showing the famous statue in Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janiero being destroyed. I'm fairly sure you will be in for a convoluted explanation of religious tolerance - which is really a mask to cover an example of unwillingness to "push the envelope" in the face of a perceived violent intolerance of differing opinions. It is almost formulaic: the more the film industry is willing to insult Christianity and Judaism, the less willing it is to insult Islam. Guess who the film industry winds up supporting, in at least a de facto manner?

Richard Viguerie quotes the Wisdom of Phyllis Schlafly

Jack Kemp


http://www.conservativehq.com/node/7699

As Phyllis noted, last year 41 percent of all babies born in the U.S. (including 53 percent of babies born to women under 30) were born outside of marriage.  “It is obvious,” said Schlafly, “that when the mother of these children has no husband to support her and her babies, she calls on Big Brother Government.”

You and I then pay the bills for welfare, after school programs, Head Start and a host of other expensive and largely unsuccessful federal efforts to replace the nuclear family.

“It's not poverty that causes broken families; it's the absence of marriage that causes poverty and puts kids below the designated poverty line. Social issues cause fiscal expenses,” concludes Schlafly.

SECTION OMITTED

Establishment Republicans don’t want to talk about it either.  It all sounds so icky and judgmental around the bar at the country club.  Besides, establishment Republicans, especially those running the Mitt Romney campaign, are infected with what might be called “Goldwater Syndrome.”  They suffer from a form of dementia in which they are forever stuck on Election Day 1964.  This syndrome causes them to prefer to run content-free campaigns and ignore the fact that by running on the social issues Republicans have won seven of the past eleven presidential elections

Monday, April 23, 2012

A Ruse by Any Other Name at Canada Free Press

Timothy Birdnow

Was Obama's slip of the tongue in Colombia really just a mistake, or was there a sinister motive behind his calling the Falkland Islands not just the Malvinas but the Maldives?  Making such a mistake so close to Earth Day got me to thinking...

Read all about it at Canada Free Press.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/46201

Argumentum

Timothy Birdnow

Lord Monckton goes through the Aristotilian fallacies of the Global Warming movement. A masterful piece of work - don't miss it!

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/04/20/aristotles-climate/

Coming Maunder?

Timothy Birdnow

You'll never be lacking a barber on the Sun, if this Japanese research is true:

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201204200075

Apparently the Sun is soon to have four poles rather than two, the result of an enfeebled condition.

From the article:

"Officials of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Riken research foundation said on April 19 that the activity of sunspots appeared to resemble a 70-year period in the 17th century in which London’s Thames froze over and cherry blossoms bloomed later than usual in Kyoto.

In that era, known as the Maunder Minimum, temperatures are estimated to have been about 2.5 degrees lower than in the second half of the 20th century.

The Japanese study found that the trend of current sunspot activity is similar to records from that period.

The researchers also found signs of unusual magnetic changes in the sun. Normally, the sun’s magnetic field flips about once every 11 years. In 2001, the sun’s magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere, flipped to the south.

While scientists had predicted that the next flip would begin from May 2013, the solar observation satellite Hinode found that the north pole of the sun had started flipping about a year earlier than expected. There was no noticeable change in the south pole.

If that trend continues, the north pole could complete its flip in May 2012 but create a four-pole magnetic structure in the sun, with two new poles created in the vicinity of the equator of our closest star."

End excerpt.

So we may be entering another Maunder Minimum!  Maunder coincided with the "Little Ice Age", a period of unusual cold. This was critical in many ways; the Mayans saw their civilization decline during the LIA, and the Mound Builders in the Midwest civilization collapsed with the coming of the LIA. Europe's colonization of the world was spurred on by the deprivations of this period, and the subsequent decline of many aboriginal civilizations as they were no longer able to adequately feed themselves due to the cooling climate. It was a hard time.

Maybe we need a little Global Warming after all?

Sunday, April 22, 2012

John Goodman shows us the Big Government War on Women

Jack Kemp

Although most readers here tend to be conservative, what John Goodman uncovered in his Townhall.com article today on how the U.S. Federal Tax Code hurts most women no matter what their political viewpoint. This is most particularly true for single women and married women working part time. This article is a real eye opener for everyone no matter one's political affiliation or gender. Frankly, I was shocked by what he revealed and would assume a woman would be more shocked, as it directly effects her personal tax bill.

If Romney took the lead on advocating reform of these tax statues, he could get a lot of women's votes, end an injustice, and contribute to sending Obama home to live in Chicago this coming January.

Below is the link and a few of the author's major findings.

http://townhall.com/columnists/johncgoodman/2012/04/21/how_mitt_romney_can_erase_the_gender_gap/page/full/

How Mitt Romney Can Erase the Gender Gap
John C. Goodman...Is there any way Romney can turn things around and win the women back? Yes...

SECTION OMITTED

Outdated Laws. Our public policy institutions have not kept pace with these remarkable changes, however. Tax law, labor law and a host of other institutions are still designed from top-to-bottom on the assumption that husbands will be full-time workers, while wives will mainly stay at home. As a result, the highest tax rates in our economy are paid by women wage earners. In fact, women earning only modest incomes can pay taxes at rates that are twice those paid by such billionaires as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. Consider that:

    • When a woman leaves the home and enters the labor market, she will be taxed at her husband's tax rate, even if she earns only the minimum wage. When all taxes and all costs are considered (including the cost of child care and other services she was previously providing as a homemaker), a woman in a middle-income household working a full-time minimum wage job can expect to keep only about 32 cents out of each dollar she earns.

    • If the woman's husband dies prematurely, Social Security will provide a modest benefit as long as she stays home and takes care of children; but if she works, the combined effect of direct taxes plus loss of benefits will create a marginal tax rate of 75 percent — leaving her with only 25 cents out of each extra dollar she earns.

SECTION OMITTED

    • If the woman receives government assistance, she will confront a newly reformed system that is supposed to encourage work; however, when explicit taxes are combined with loss of benefits, her marginal tax rate will be about 72 percent — leaving her with only 28 cents out of each dollar of wage income.

SECTION OMITTED
  
    • Because Social Security taxes are levied on all earnings until capped at a high income level, dual-earner households generally pay considerably more in taxes than single-earner households, but they will get only a minimal increase in Social Security benefits.

    • Because women live longer than men, they will be more burdened by the income taxes paid on Social Security benefits, which will cause many middle-income seniors to forfeit more than half of their private pension income and IRA withdrawals.

SECTION OMITTED

Couples with two full-time working adults are disadvantaged in other ways. They often find that they must accept unnecessary, duplicate sets of employee benefits, say, because the wife is unable to opt for higher wages if she forgoes health insurance from her own employer when she is already covered on her husband's employer's plan.

A Better Way. Many changes are needed to bring aging institutions into sync with the way people are living their lives in the 21st century. Here are a few suggestions:

    • We need a fairer tax system for two-earner couples, ideally a system that taxes all income at one low rate.

    • Employee benefits law should permit flexibility, making it easier for dual-earner couples to obtain higher wages rather than unneeded, duplicate benefits and for part-time workers to accept lower wages in return for more valuable health and retirement benefits.

SECTION OMITTED

    • We need a fairer system for providing tax relief for health insurance — especially for single parents who leave the workforce for extended periods of time and for others who must purchase health insurance on their own.

END OF QUOTE

This is some of the wisest advice I've ever seen in politics. And a businessman like Mitt Romney can easily understand the math here - as well as the Swing State Electoral Math. I don't mean to sound opportunistic, although it is hard not to do so months before a Presidential Election. I think these reforms are worth advocating in any year, but in an election year there are more Americans willing to listen to a "boring" tax subject, particularly if the reforms suggested help them and their families. Yet whatever happens this November, this is an issue (or set of issues) that should get wide publicity and be taken up by many in the coming year(s), particularly by women impacted by the current IRS tax code.

Go for it, Mr. Romney. Mr. Goodman has handed you - and the women of America - a gift of an issue.

Obama Announcement

Jack Kemp

Obama at the microphone for an announcement:

Now some of you folks who come from Indonesia or Asia like the taste of dog. We are pleased to announce that our school lunch program will now have delicious dog meat on the menu in every school lunch program across the country. And the FDA will also be approving the sale of dog in your favorite supermarket. And the Commodities Trading authorities will also be approving the trading of dog meat future contracts on the Chicago Board of Trade. And if I'm reelected, I've got a pleasant surprise for you muskrat lovers as well.

Obama's sings my ver. of Doggie in the Window

Jack Kemp

My version of Obama's singing "How Much is That Doggie in the Window?"as originally sung by Patti Page:

How much is that doggie in the window? Arf! Arf!
I'd sure like to eat him with kale
How much is that doggie in the window? Arf! Arf!
I do hope that doggie's not stale

I must take a trip to California
And leave my poor sweetheart alone
If she has a dog, she won't worry
Where she will find a soup bone

How much is that doggie in the window? Arf! Arf!
I'd sure like to munch on the tail
How much is that doggie in the window? Arf! Arf!
I hope he fits in my lunch pail

I read that there are robbers Woof! Woof!
With flashlights that shine in the dark
That never did concern me
A doggie never stopped a narc

I don't want a bunny or a kitty
Their meat is to tough to digest
I don't want a bowl of little fishies
Their's no meat on their chest

How much is that doggie in the window? Arf! Arf!
I'd sure like to eat him with kale
How much is that doggie in the window? Arf! Arf!
I hope I can get it wholesale

I hope I can get it wholesale

Palin Gas Plan on Fox

Jack Kemp forwards this video.  Sarah Palin has a terrific plan to lower gas prices - one the GOP should embrace

http://www.redstate.com/brian_d/2012/04/19/the-palin-bolling-proposal-to-lower-gas-prices/

Food for Thought


Jack Kemp

Memo to all Obama Fundraisers
from the Democratic National Committee:

When selling tickets to an Obama Fundraising Dinner, do not say,
"Obama will be putting on the dog for you."

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Allan Bloom: Remembering the Teacher

Daren Jonescu
(This article first appeared at American Thinker.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/allan_bloom_remembering_the_teacher.html)
Allan Bloom was a great teacher.  A great teacher is a man whose manner of framing the important questions continues to inform his students' thoughts long after they have left the teacher behind.  A great teacher's lasting impression is not his "personality," that collection of idiosyncrasies which make him memorable in the way of a good vacation, but his mind -- the way his reasoning sheds light on new and indelible colors in what would otherwise have been a less nuanced palette of experience.
Bloom was just such a teacher.  The proof of this is that he had the true teacher's lasting effect on many students, including this one, who never met him, but knew him only through his written works.  
This spring marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Bloom's best-selling philosophical polemic, The Closing of the American Mind.  And as Simon & Schuster is celebrating the event with a new edition, Bloom's most famous book will receive renewed attention this spring, along with many thoughtful reappraisals.  Andrew Ferguson has already taken a worthy stab at this at The Weekly Standard.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/book-drove-them-crazy_634905.html
The book's glory lies in its explicit espousal of a Socratic, dialectical tone, and its resulting power to corner an open-minded reader in places he might never have gone willingly, without the guidance of a skillful "pimp and midwife" (as Bloom puts it) -- i.e., without a true teacher.  That is, the beauty of this book is its ability to tempt the reader out of the closed-mindedness (sold today as "openness" by the left) that Bloom diagnoses as the fundamental threat to the republican form of government.  Bloom, like the Platonic Socrates he so admired, was a genius at challenging people to rethink what they thought they knew, and to question their society -- and themselves -- precisely in those areas that are most tender and painful.
However, any book of civilizational critique that sells a million copies is bound to have attracted many readers who were more curious than serious about its content, and who were more likely to glom onto particular paragraphs or bons mots that seemed to buttress their own opinions than to allow themselves to be shaken from long-held prejudices.  The practice of reading great books in search of support for one's own opinions -- or in search of justifications for one's bias against the author's presumed position -- is always dangerous.  In Bloom's case, it has led to many conservatives cherry-picking his book for anti-leftist arguments, while others have cherry-picked it for evidence of anti-Americanism.  Some readers have accused Bloom, a homosexual and an atheist, of being a "homophobic" representative of the religious right; others, in spite of his profound critique of postmodern philosophy, have dismissed him as a European-style elitist with no respect for American culture.
What is lost in the cherry-picking approach, regardless of whether it comes out for or against Bloom, is his book's ability to stir in the reader that uncomfortable feeling, inspired by Bloom as by Socrates, that one is missing something -- that there is more to life than one has hitherto admitted.  In other words, using Bloom to attack others is all well and good, as his teachings can help us to win some important intellectual arguments; but Bloom's greatest value is in his attack on you.  To feel self-satisfied after reading The Closing of the American Mind is to have missed the point, not to mention missing the opportunity of a lifetime -- the opportunity for self-discovery.
Even Ferguson's fine tribute shows hints of this problem.  Noting Bloom's assault on today's popular philosophical lexicon -- "lifestyle," "values," "creativity," and so on -- which constitutes the book's transitional step from the discussion of popular "culture" (another word on Bloom's hit-list) to the analysis of its philosophical roots, Ferguson somewhat casually observes that these concepts "are now so deeply embedded in everyday speech that no amount of reason or ridicule will dislodge them."
But Bloom was not merely trying to excise empty catchwords from our language.  He was coaxing us to think through the most basic premises of modern thought.  As he shows, the lexical shift from "virtue" to "values," for example, is much more than a loss of conceptual concreteness.  It bespeaks the victory of Nietzsche's moral perspectivism, in which subjective emotional assessments take the place of moral definitions grounded in an understanding of human nature.  These cheerful English translations of powerful German philosophical abstractions spell the utter corruption of the Western traditions that made political freedom possible.  To concede defeat on this score is to concede everything.
This is even more urgently true with regard to the most famous, and most controversial, part of Bloom's book: his discussion of today's popular music.  It has become the norm for even his defenders to downplay the importance of this chapter, or at best to reduce it to an older man's rejection of the irrational excesses of modern "youth culture."  In fact, to dismiss or skim lightly over his critique of rock music is to avoid the teaching essence of the book -- amely, its Socratic power to challenge the reader's most deeply ingrained attachments.
At the core of Bloom's project is his battle to reclaim the true ancient Greek conception of eros from its post-Freudian pseudo-scientific trivialization.  Following Plato and Aristotle, Bloom identifies the erotic element of the soul as the source of its intellectual and moral growth, and hence the careful nurturing of the erotic impulses of the young as the very definition of education.  He punctuates this point vividly, describing as his goal the figurative cries of "Oh, yes!" that he elicits from his students when teaching Hegel or Shakespeare.  The desire for sex, as he explains, is one and the same with the desire for completion, which ultimately means the desire for wisdom.
The overt sexuality of today's popular music is dangerous, he argues persuasively, not because it enlivens the passions, but rather because it deadens and belittles them by freezing the soul's erotic nature at its most banal, literal level, thus preventing the proper advance of the erotic youth into full adulthood -- i.e., into a rationally informed desire for beauty, knowledge, and freedom.  Modern popular music, he suggests, is the arch-nemesis of liberal education, as it blocks the soul's natural progression into a perspective that transcends the pubescent fixation on self and moment.  The importance Bloom placed on the near-universal obsession with this music is expressed in his judgment that "future civilizations will wonder at this and find it as incomprehensible as we do the caste system, witch-burning, harems, cannibalism and gladiatorial combats" (p. 75).  In other words, those future judges will wonder how a civilized people could have become so irrationally dehumanized.
I was one of the exceedingly fortunate, as Bloom's great book happened to appear just when I needed a true teacher, as I entered university.  It challenged me, partly with its dizzying tour of the philosophical universe, but even more with its hard questions about modern popular culture and its meaning.  Bloom's questions seemed aimed directly at me, and luckily I was young and innocent enough to be attracted by his challenges, rather than repelled by them, in the same way that so many Athenian youths lined up eagerly for the chance to be shamed into self-improvement by Socrates.
I have grown to disagree with important aspects of Bloom's philosophy.  On a theoretical level, Bloom, as a pupil of Leo Strauss, shares the general Straussian propensity to regard the great philosophers' metaphysical theories as merely a cover story for their political agendas, a view on display in his most important scholarly work, his interpretation of Plato's Republic, and one which I reject.  On a practical level, as a father of American neo-conservatism, Bloom, like his "offspring," shows too little respect for the U.S. Constitution's explicit limits on government's capacity to effect positive change.
I won't bore you with the rest of my disagreements with Bloom.  My point in mentioning them is merely this: my own thinking on these issues, even where I disagree with Bloom's answers, was and is informed by my understanding of what the questions are -- an understanding that I, like so many others, owe in large part to the good fortune of encountering Allan Bloom when my mind was still open enough to be touched by his teaching.
Small men reveal their personalities in their books.  Great men, precisely because they have the humility of the great (the awareness that so much of what they are is small), conceal their petty selves in the folds of their noblest, and most ennobling, ideas.  In so doing, they give their readers a rare opportunity to enjoy the purest form of education; we participate directly in the life of the mind, without the intellectual obstacles presented by everyday human banalities.  Bloom concludes his book with the observation that "men may live more truly and fully in reading Plato and Shakespeare than at any other time, because then they are participating in essential being and are forgetting their accidental lives" (p. 380).  His own work aspires to such purity, and though perhaps it does not achieve this, the effort itself offers us a glimmer of what is possible, even in today's distraction-strewn times.
Saul Bellow's fictionalized biography of Bloom, Ravelstein, has helped to foster a more "closed-minded" approach to Bloom's great book.  Bellow tells us, through his own fictional alter-ego, that "Ravelstein" asked the novelist to write this account of his personal life.  This merely reveals Bloom's human, all too human weakness.  Having brilliantly concealed his inconsequential "self" in favor of his grand, universal teaching, he was ultimately unable to accept the harshest and most beautiful reality of the teacher's life: that his mind lives on through his students, but his idiosyncratic identity does not -- that universal truths survive, but particularity must inevitably be forgotten.
Sadly, Ravelstein the man threatens to displace Bloom the teacher in the minds of some readers.  But Ravelstein, a pretty bland novel apart from its gossip value, will be long forgotten when Americans -- if there still is an America then -- return to contemplate The Closing of the American Mind upon its hundredth anniversary.
In the meantime, we ought to envy those university freshmen of today who are about to have their first encounter with a wonderful teacher, thanks to the new edition of Bloom's great book.

r

A Passion Play

Timothy Birdnow

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Dr. Martin Luther King

Recently I received a chain e-mail detailing the horrific rape and murder of a young Knoxville couple in 2007. Channon Christian and Chris Newsom were carjacked by a group of black thugs, repeatedly gang-raped, sexually tortured, urinated on, and eventually murdered (after several days of torment). The story received no national attention, and is only now coming to light as it makes it's way through the internet in response to the hysteria over the shooting of Trayvon Martin.  Needless to say, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the New Black Panthers, and the others who are so indignant about the killing of Martin (with little evidence) seem unconcerned about an horrific act of barbarism perpetrated on a white couple.

According to Knoxnews.com:

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/news/local/channon-christian-christopher-newsom-murders/

"In the early morning hours of Jan. 7, 2007, Christopher Newsom and his girlfriend Channon Christian were carjacked and held captive in a house on Chipman Street in Knoxville. Both were raped, tortured and killed. Newsom's body was discovered in the vicinity that afternoon burning alongside railroad tracks. Christian's body was found stuffed in a trashcan inside the house a couple of days later. Five people were arrested in connection with the crime . Eric Boyd was convicted in federal court of aiding the alleged ringleader, Lemaricus Davidson, after the carjacking and murders and is serving an 18-year prison sentence. The first defendant to be tried in Knox County Criminal Court, Letalvis Cobbins, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in August 2009. His brother, Davidsion, was tried next and was sentenced to death by lethal injection in October 2009. In December 2009, George Thomas was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Vanessa Coleman was acquitted of first-degree murder in May in the deaths but was convicted of facilitating the death of Christian. She is awaiting sentencing on July 30."

End excerpt

The race of the perpetrators should be immaterial to any moral judgment here, as should be the race of the victims, but this case illustrates perfectly the hypocrisy of the national news media and the professional race-hustling class; there is little concern for these "privileged" white kids.

There is a narrative, a passion-play, if you will, which permeates the media and the elite Left. Persons of color cannot be anything but victims, this narrative states, and if any perpetrate some monstrous act, why, it's simply an acting out of natural anger and must be dismissed as the result of white injustice. In this narrative the white person is always the guilty party, guilty by virtue of some perceived privilege, a privilege that was obtained through repression, through theft, through evil domination of persons of color, through racism. That is why they jumped on the Trayvon Martin case; they saw a story that they thought would fit their narrative. Ditto the Duke Lacrosse case. The best thing they can do to reinforce this narrative is to ignore stories like the Christian/Newsom murders, because it not only does not buttress their argument that white males are evil but it actually turns hearts and minds against their template. One sours on this "people of color are always good" narrative after being victimized.

This is part of the reason the Left is so quick to embrace Muslims; they are people of color, whose understandable anger is the byproduct of Western white racism and oppression. That Muslims have behaved this way since the Prophet Muhammad, that at the peak of their power they still engaged in terrorist attacks, in kidnappings, in enslavement, is forgotten or just not that important to the Liberals; what matters is that they are not white, Christian, Westerners. These liberals can ignore the fact that the Crusades were sparked in part by the murder of over 2000 Christian pilgrims peaceably traveling to Jerusalem, and they focus on the fact that the Christians attacked the Islamic world - when the Islamic world was only Islamic because of military conquest. It is the reason why the media carefully reported about the Fort Hood shooting, trying to say that Nidal Malik Hasan suffered from stress at being called up while ignoring that he had become increasingly radical and shouted Aluha Ahkbar! when he fired at the soldiers. We cannot give the pea-brained white Christian Right-wing hillbillies the idea that a man of color committed an atrocity, lest they rampage and lynch innocents.

For example, the left-wing  blog site Crooks and Liars had this to say immediately after the Hasan shootings:

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/wingnuts-rush-conclusions-about-fort

"No sooner was the identity of the Fort Hood shooter released -- a man with the Arab name Nadal Malik Hasan -- than the wingnuts sprang into predictable action: Of course he was a jihadi embarking on a murderous terrorism spree!"

[...]

"Then Shepard Smith interviewed Hasan's cousin, and we found out that this was all so much tripe:

-- Hasan was American born and educated, but raised Muslim. He was not a convert.

-- He had never previously been deployed to Iraq or anywhere overseas, for that matter. So much for the theories he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

-- He was regularly abused by his colleagues in the military for being Muslim -- called a "raghead" and other such terms -- and had been seeking to get out of the military because the environment had become so hostile.

Another interview, on just before this one, that Smith had with a former colleague of Hasan's indicated that Hasan was prone to making outrageous remarks about Muslims "defending themselves," particularly in reference to last summer's shooting of two military recruiters in Arkansas by a Muslim convert.

There are also reports that he had recently been the victim of a hate crime: His car was vandalized, with the word "Allah" scratched into the paint, and he was reportedly extremely upset by it."

End excerpt

But Crooks and Liars was spectacularly wrong, as evidence would clearly show.  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/us/07forthood.html?partner=rss&emc=rss The Army knew it, too, knew about Hasan's involvement with radicals in Yemen and yet failed to act against him because of the narrative. But the important point to observe is that Crooks and Liars kneejerk reaction was to absolve Hasan of guilt; how can he be guilty?  He's a person of color, and clearly a de-facto victim.

In typical fashion, the mainstream media was slow to call this an act of terrorism. The New York Times, for instance, quoted Administration officials who tried to claim it was a matter of combat stress, even though Hasan had never been in combat.

So the Left is quick to defend persons of color, and have been nearly apoplectic in their defense of Trayvon Martin and their insistence that his killer, George Zimmerman (a man they mistakenly identified as white and now call a "white hispanic") face the full fury of the law is only natural to their worldview.

Liberalism is a destructive force. It is about tearing down, about dismantling the edifice that has been built here in the West. Western culture was built upon the bedrock of Judaism and the Greco-Roman culture, and Christianity refined that culture and kept building, creating a cathedral of cultural heritage. The core of Liberalism is hatred for that system, hatred of the Church, hatred of the traditions and heritage that made our society. Western civilization had it's faults - many of them - but the fact remains it was superior to any other culture Man has ever employed. Concepts of charity, of justice, of kindness, were largely alien in the rest of the world. Ars Gratia Artist, art for art's sake, is a Western concept. So is knowledge for knowledge sake. So is participatory government. The list goes on and on.

But Liberalism fanned the flames of discontent, of hatred of God and Church, of rebellion. The Liberals were fortunate, as their movement came on the heels of the Protestant Reformation and they learned what worked for the Protestants. They had the printing press. They had a framework of educational institutions. They were uniquely poised to spread their misanthropy. And their philosophy of rebellion has come to dominate the modern Western world.

That philosophy has created the monsters who raped and murdered the young couple in Knoxville. And it continues to foster and nurture the same conditions that made this heinous act possible.

It was the sexual revolution and the Great Society that destroyed the black family, leading to innumerable children being poorly raised by overworked and stressed-out single mothers. It was the relaxation of disciplinary policies in the schools that made these unruly children feel untouchable, able to do anything. It was the failure of this same educational system that made it impossible for them to learn. It was the liberal notion of nonjudgementalism that made it impossible for even strangers to correct bad behavior. It was the liberal view that punishment should not be meted out when children are bad - or when adults perform evil acts - and these thugs learned early that they would receive lots of attention by acting up and would face no real consequence. It was the liberals who encouraged drug use, which has become an epidemic, particularly in black neighborhoods. The barbarism that we witness today in America's streets is entirely a creation of the Left.

And the fruits of this permissiveness coupled with restraint of those who would take action are ubiquitous. The Knockout Game in St. Louis is but one example of young males acting out because they can.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/knockout-game-case-shocked-st-louis-then-fell-apart/article_cdf5032a-b65e-51e0-a84e-de0f0ce0c5f8.html

The Left has systematically dismantled the centuries-old system designed to channel the courser portions of human nature into less destructive directions, and many are then surprised that the system is breaking down. (Actually, the hard Left knew full well it would break down, which is why they did it; their purpose is revolution, and that can only come when the hated culture loses it's grip.) Gun control is, of course, a big part of it; as long as there is an armed citizenry there is a defense se against the barbarians. The goal is to make the average person defenseless before evil, then they will cry out to the State. But there are many soft-headed liberals who really believed their way would improve things, completely ignoring history. History shows that Man is depraved and requires a system of levees and barricades to channel his passions. As James Madison pointed out in Federalist 51, if Men were angels they would have no need of government. Men are not angels.

But by government we mean more than just the formal institution of the State, we mean the entire sphere of culture and tradition. We mean the churches. We mean custom. We mean public pressures. We mean a man should be able to correct an unruly child without fear of reprisal. We mean school officials who will take action against a bad child who is disruptive in class; one bad apple does indeed spoil the barrel. Ask any school teacher about the power of one unruly child in corrupting the whole educational environment.

But first and foremost we mean a man should govern himself. That is the first, most primal, form of governing. Without that we are left to govern at the point of a sword, or allow barbarism to reign.

Liberals think that freedom means not being subject to any sort of discipline. They have dismantled every guardrail. That human beings need these guardrails to give them guidance never occurs to the Liberal; he sees only the focus of his own selfish desire to hold unlimited license. “Who are we to judge?”, they demand of us. A whole generation has grown up under the delusional viewpoint that nobody can tell anybody how to live because there is no right to judge. We would not raise a dog in such a fashion, yet children are allowed, nay, forced to invent their entire system of morality. Human nature is debased, according to the Bible. Liberals may not believe that, preferring to think Man is inherently good, but history shows little goodness in the undisciplined person. These thugs who committed this heinous act should be proof of that last statement.

The Left's answer is more of the same, more empowering of government at the expense of the people who are actually in the trenches. Free Man from every sin by simply denying there is such a thing!  Excuse, dismiss, embolden, all the while restraining those who would act as a force for civilization. We are busily creating the barbarians who will bring our civilization down.

And so the liberals in the media go ballistic when a young black man is killed by a frightened non-black antagonist, while dismissing as unimportant one of the most hideous acts of pure evil imaginable because the perpetrators are persons of color. This dismissal is simply because the murders in Knoxville do not fit their paradigm, do not advance the passion-play morality lesson they wish to advance.  Oh, and a passion play was often designed to inflame passions in the audience; many Jews were killed in the Middle Ages after such events.  The modern media version serves much the same purpose.

The Fourth Estate has become nothing but a parliament of social revolutionaries.

Trayvon Martin may or may not have been murdered by a "white-hispanic",  but these men murdered this young couple in cold blood. They deserve better than a yawn from the press.

(Hat tip to Dana Mathewson and Jack Kemp for several concepts in this work.)




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