Regarding our current president: How did he get away with this?

Ok, so it's been a really long time since I last posted, almost two years in fact. Life got rather interesting, in a good way, and the blog got put on the back burner. The way back burner, I guess. But now the rest of the world is getting interesting as well, and not in good ways. So I'll try to start writing regularly again, and see where it takes me. You'll also probably notice that I'm even more right-wing and religious than I was before. So this should be fun. And, we're off!

In case you haven't guessed already, I did not vote for Barack Obama. He is easily the most liberal person to ever hold any kind of office in this country, and I find his positions on just about everything to be truly disgusting. But I recently became aware of a few things that have lowered my opinion of him even further.

It is well known, to anyone with even a sliver of intellectual honesty, that Obama is very racist and not at all Christian. He tried to sell himself as "The Great Unifier", and painted himself as the faithful Christian. All us conservatives knew this to be a great steaming pile, but I am now extra shocked that so many liberals fell for it. You see, Mr. Obama has published some books. And in those books he makes his beliefs and feelings quite clear. He expounds at great length on just how racist he is. His book "Dreams of My Father" is action-packed full of descriptions of his ever-increasing mistrust and animosity for white people. He talks about how his mother's race shames him, and that he has gone to great lengths to avoid emulating them in any way.

This is the kind of thing that only liberals can get away with. If a conservative even hinted at something a fraction as racist as the things in this book, their life would be over, and for good reason. But not a liberal. For some reason, when garbage like this comes out of the mouth of a liberal, especially a black liberal, it's wisdom and prose. I will never understand how this works. Somehow, racism is only bad when it comes from white people? Or it's somehow acceptable or even applauded when it's directed at white people? I wrote in a previous post that non-white racists are not taken seriously, which is why they are often paid no mind. I'm no longer entirely convinced that this is always the case. I think that conservatives are often reluctant to call racists out for fear of being called racist for doing it. I think that liberals have been sucked into believing that racism directed at whites is somehow justified, so they go along with it. And I think that liberalism depends for its very survival on the continuation of perceived racial divisions and the victim mentality. So they go out of their way to make sure that whites remain villified and non-whites remain scared of them. And anyone who challenges their assertion that America is still a hideously racist and biggoted country is just lumped into their assertion.

It's astonishing that so many people still think that Obama is Christian. The "church" he attended, led by the esteemed Reverend Wright, has nothing Christian about it. The reverend hardly ever preaches about Jesus, or mentions God or the Bible unless he's using them to justify his hate and malice. It's a church for horribly racist people who want to hear horribly racist things. And when Obama was asked questions about his Christian faith, his answers betrayed his lack of anything resembling Christian faith. Here is a list of many completely un-Christian things that he has said ON CAMERA. They even provide links to the videos. Read and watch at your leisure. You don't have to be Christian or agree with Christianity to acknowledge that this man is NOT Christian. But the most recent thing that causes me to marvel at the fact that he still claims to be Christian is the fact that in his book "The Audacity of Hope", he says, "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." Not only would an actual Christian never say this, but the Commander in Chief of the United States of America should never say such a thing! We are at war with Islam! Yes, I said it, Islam is an enemy of freedom and peace and democracy and everything holy and beautiful, and the religion itself is our enemy. Not just for Christians, but for anyone who loves peace and freedom. And we are in a shooting war with several million Muslims right now, who are hell-bent on destroying this country and everything it stands for, in the name of Islam. Politicians won't say that we are at war with Islam, but we are. The Muslims know it, and we should too. So to hear our president say that he would side with the enemy of all humanity if it gets too politically uncomfortable to do otherwise is truly terrifying.

Once again, I'm amazed that Obama could get away with saying this. Even people who don't believe that Islam is the enemy have to be at least a little concerned with the fact that our president has such sympathy for our enemies. On this, the 8th aniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I feel it's appropriate to remind people that after that horrific act of evil, then-senator Obama actually tried to excuse the perpetrators. Ever-faithful to his liberal dogma of victimhood, he actually had the balls to suggest that poor life conditions were the reasons for why the hijackers did what they did. Not only is it disgusting to suggest that such a thing would excuse them or mitigate their attrocity in any way, but it's also completely false! The people chosen by Muslim terror groups for foreign missions are almost always educated. They speak English, they have degrees from Western universities. And most of the leadership of these groups are educated as well. They often come from wealthy and powerful families. The 9/11 hijackers were all educated men. And yet we're still told that they are just lashing out because of their desperation and struggle to survive. Any Muslim who is struggling to survive is doing so because Islam has a bad habit of turning paradises into wastelands.

So, before he is elected President, Mr. Obama lays his blatant racism out for the world to see, sides with our enemies, lies about his religion, poorly, not to mention talking and writing at length about his rabidly liberal positions, and somehow he still gets elected. I just don't get it.

Saying "I told you so" is sometimes rather enjoyable. This is not one of those times.

What was it they paved the road to Hell with again...?

As you're probably already aware, the Westboro Baptist Church has been ordered to pay a civil judgment of $10.9 million to the family of a Marine who died in combat in Iraq. Mr. Fred Phelps and his group were protesting at the funeral, and the family successfully sued. According to the Baltimore Sun, "The jury found the defendants liable for violating the Snyder family's expectation of privacy at the funeral and for intentionally inflicting emotional distress".

I don't think many people would argue that what Phelps and his ilk do is right. They are disturbed and disturbing individuals, and they shame the Christian world with their hate. But this ruling, as appropriate as it seems on the surface, is setting a dangerous precedent for the future of freedom of speech in this country, especially religious free speech, which is already on shaky ground.

While many people are aware of the various hate speech laws that have been passed in countries like Canada and Sweden, where certain portions of the Bible have been labeled as hate speech, far too few people are aware of the efforts, sometimes successful, to get similar legislation passed here in the United States. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, originally drafted in 2001, has recently been passed by the Senate. The bill would add sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability to the demographics currently protected by hate crimes laws. President Bush has said he will veto it, but i doubt they will stop trying. And already people in this country are being arrested on hate speech charges. In Philadelphia, 11 people were arrested and 4 were set to stand trial for protesting at a gay pride parade. They were being charged with three felonies and five misdemeanors for praying and reading the Bible aloud at an event known as "Outfest". Luckily the charges were recently thrown out. And a Brooklyn man has been arrested and is facing hate crime charges for throwing a copy of the Koran in a toilet at Pace University. And right here in California, where I live, Gov. Schwarzennegger just signed a bill into law that makes the same changes to California's hate crimes laws as the Senate's bill would make to the federal laws. It takes effect in January.

The Westboro judgment has set a precedent for other lawsuits against Christians. As despicable as their message is, Phelps and his people weren't actually breaking any laws. Apparently they have been very careful to observe every restriction on where and when you can protest, limits on distance and such. So it's not any legal violations that they've been sued for, it's their message. Which means that now any Christian that says something that someone finds objectionable can be sued for it. And if it's not the means but the message, why stop at protests? Why not sue a priest or minister for telling his congregation that homosexual behavior is a sin? Why not sue a blogger or columnist for writing that Islam is a violent religion? People in Canada and Sweden have been jailed for doing just those things.

This ruling is bound to set off a wave of anti-Christian lawsuits across the country. And when it gets bad enough, all it will take to cross over from civil to criminal law is one liberal judge. It's already happening in Philadelphia and New York without that precedent, so just imagine how bad it will get with the precedent. And once speech contrary to "progressive" ideals is a crime, it's only a matter of time before Christianity itself is labeled hate speech, and outlawed.

Already a growing number of both liberal and conservative columnists and bloggers are expressing similar concerns about the potential consequences of this case. Even some Gay Rights blogs and college progressives are worried about what might happen to the First Amendment as a result, which is indicative of the larger threat to civil liberties this poses. And just in case anyone wants to brush these concerns off as paranoia, even legal blogs are discussing the threat.

So why has so much effort been put into pathetic little scabs like the Phelps clan, when the KKK and various Neo-Nazi groups still enjoy their First Amendment rights? If we have to suffer the racist ravings of these people for the sake of freedom of speech, what makes the Westboro slime any different? Is it simply because nobody has taken the KKK seriously in decades? Or is it because their right to spew their venom has already been upheld in federal court? I don't know which would be worse, the criminalization of Christianity, or being forced to cite the federal protection of racist scum to prevent it, thereby drawing a perverted sense of equivalency between the two.

Also relevant to this issue is the fact that nobody is being arrested or sued for anti-Christian hate speech. When was the last time someone was jailed for urinating on the Bible? Forget jail, we'll give them a federal grant! When was the last time someone even suggested prosecuting someone for anti-Christian hate speech? It's hard enough just to get actual threats against Christians investigated, let alone prosecuted! But as soon as you point out the double standard, you are labeled as "homophobic" or "Islamophobic". I applaud the handful of liberals, like those that wrote the above mentioned blogs, that have the courage to speak out against such things regardless of the heat they will probably get for it from their peers. As the wise Dumbledore once said, "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends."

Since when do liberals care about genocide?

Well, after a really long absence, I'm back. I thought that work had calmed down enough in February to allow me to get back to blogging. Wow, was I wrong. But I've decided that I will try to post at least one blog a week. Shouldn't be too hard, right?

Not too long ago there was an attempt by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pass a resolution labeling the killing of Armenians in Turkey a century ago as genocide. On the surface, this would seem like a good thing, right? Liberals recognizing the serious nature of genocide? There's a first time for everything, I guess.

But their timing, as well as their track record, casts serious doubt on the motives behind this resolution. So far, the Democratic-led congress has been incapable of making a dent in our war efforts, and they're growing desperate. Their approval rating is 11%, due to their failure at ending "Bush's war". And their complete unwillingness to even talk about current, active genocidal situations like Darfur makes one doubt their sincerity. So why would Pelosi be pushing such a resolution?

Turkey is our only real Muslim ally in the Middle East. They have given us military fly-over permission as well as other assistance in Iraq. Without their cooperation, this war would be vastly more difficult. Turkey has always been a bit touchy on the whole genocide thing. Ottoman Turks took it upon themselves a century ago to slaughter an estimated 100,000 Armenian civilians. Sure sounds like genocide, but Turkey insists that the tragedy was due to civil unrest, and that the numbers are smaller. Regardless, present day Turkey is not the Ottoman Empire. The current Turkish government is not culpable for attrocities of the past. That's not to say that such things shouldn't be remembered. Just like slavery in America, we should always remember, but present day Americans are not responsible for it. Of course, liberals try to pin that on us too.

Democrats and liberals don't have a very good reputation for being concerned with the attrocities commited in other countries. They are completely ambivalent in regards to the slaughter in Darfur, or the human rights violations in North Korea and Iran. They could care less about the oppression of Cuba or the rampant beheadings in Saudi Arabia. But suddenly they've got their panties in a twist about a possible genocide a hundred years ago? You might be able to chalk it up to the typical liberal pattern of jumping on a cause that has absolutely no impact on anything rather than actually getting their hands dirty with something that matters. But I doubt it.

This resolution was a deliberate attempt at destabilizing our diplomatic relationship with Turkey in the hopes that they would withdraw their logistic cooperation in Iraq. Simply suggesting the resolution was enough to make Turkey recall its U.S. ambassador. Luckily, the effort was just as impotent as everything else this congress has tried to do. Pelosi couldn't scrape up enough support to put it through, and then decided to back off herself. Even Rep. John Murtha voiced his opinion that the resolution was poorly timed and undermined our relationship with a valued ally.

You would think that the Democrats would have jumped all over a chance to possibly hinder our efforts in Iraq. The fact that they didn't just goes to show how underhanded and poorly thought out this resolution was. Are Democrats so panicked about ending this war that they are willing to alienate one of our most important allies to do it?

It makes you wonder what other bridges they'd be willing to burn to end the war in Iraq. Just how much damage are they prepared to do to this country in order to secure our defeat? As if the fallout from a withdrawal of U.S. troops wouldn't be bad enough, now they want to make sure we have no friends left when it all hits the fan.

We need all the allies we can get right now. We shouldn't be slapping the few we already have in the face. Perhaps one day we will have a chance to sort out history and figure out what really happened in Turkey a century ago. Now is not the time.

So much for, "give peace a chance"...

I'm back! First off, let me apologize to any readers I might have for being away for so long. Work has been more than crazy for weeks. But now it's tapered off, and I have the time to get back to blogging.

As you may already know, there was a suicide bombing in Afghanistan yesterday, reportedly targeting Vice President Dick Cheney. While the blast killed several people and wounded others, Mr. Cheney was some distance away and was not injured, but a Taliban spokesman said Mr. Cheney was indeed the target.

If you would like more information on the attack itself, you can read the article. What I would like to talk about is the reaction to this event here at home, among the liberal community. To put it simply, many liberals are disappointed that Mr. Cheney was not killed. Here are some examples of their reactions:
"They missed?? Dammit. I hope they try again before he leaves."
"So Cheney is personally responsible for the deaths of 14 innocent people…and then he waddles off to lunch!! What a piece of shit!"
These quotes were apparently taken from this blog, before being cleaned up. This other blog apparently has a transcript of the post that was saved before it was changed, but as of writing this, the link doesn't seem to be working.

Never before, in the history of this great nation, has there ever been a domestic movement that has so openly and enthusiastically supported and empathized with the enemy of not only this country, but of all of humanity. No matter how hard I try, I just cannot figure out what makes these people tick. Liberals are cheering this attempted assassination of their own vice president, feeling that Mr. Cheney's death would somehow be just. Even if there were a U.S. politician who deserved to be punished for something, having him blown up by foreign terrorists would not be the way to accomplish it! I urge you to search the various liberal blogs for this topic, and read the reader comments. They really don't seem to care what kind of secondary effects Mr. Cheney's death would have had. They don't care that it would be of tremendous value to the propaganda machine of the terrorists. They don't care about the detrimental effects it would most likely have on our own political system. They make very little mention of the two Americans that died in the blast, or the other Americans that would have been killed had the attack been successful.

But then, they were just soldiers, just Mr. Cheney's staff, no big loss if they were killed beside him. And our capitalist pig government could use some destabilizing. And why not support the terrorists? After all, they have so many goals in common. Modern liberalism is a lie. They don't want peace. They don't detest bloodshed. They don't want to see the west cooperate with the rest of the world in a compassionate and caring manner. They want the west to be destroyed. And I don't think most of them even realize that's what they want. But when you ask them about the individual components of what they want, all the very worst parts of it coincide perfectly with what the Islamic terrorists want. They want democracy, capitalism, and Christianity to be exterminated. They claim that they grieve for every American who dies, and yet they openly admit that they would like nothing better than to see the brutal assassination of one particular American. This from the same people that decry the death penalty, saying that no one has the right to kill another human being, for any reason.

I chose the two quotes above out of the many others because they struck me as particularly telling of the liberal mindset. The first expresses a desire to see a second, more successful attack on Mr. Cheney. They don't seem to care about the fact that this would almost certainly be done with another suicide bomb, probably an even bigger one, resulting in the deaths of who knows how many more innocent people, including Americans. This is an example of the two-dimensional thinking of liberals. This is how small children think. I want the cookie. Mommy has told me not to eat the cookie. But Mommy isn't here right now, so I'll eat the cookie. Not realizing that every action has consequences, no matter how desirable it may seem at the time, is juvenile. Liberals are only concerned with what they want right now. They don't care about the future, and they don't care about how it will affect the people around them. They are children.

The second quote attempts to lay the responsibility of the deaths caused by the suicide bomber on Mr. Cheney. As if he is somehow liable for the actions of a homicidal maniac who blew himself up, killing as many innocent people as he could. The quote says, "personally responsible". Just like President Bush is "personally responsible" for 9/11, right? Liberals are incapable of understanding the concept of responsibility. A careless woman burns herself with a cup of coffee, and it's the restaurants fault. A criminal falls down a flight of stairs while robbing a house, and it's the homeowners fault. A psycho rapes and murders some school girls, and it's anybody's fault but his. And now the Vice President of the United States of America is "personally responsible" for the deaths of the people killed in a suicide bombing that targeted him. The concept of true responsibility terrifies liberals. They can't handle it, so they pass it on to someone else. Once again, this is something that children do. "It's not my fault, he made me do it!", or, "It's not my fault, he made me angry!" Who hasn't heard a child say something like this? And just like liberals, they really believe it.

The liberals and the Islamo-facists have one other thing in common. They are both revealing to the world exactly what they are. They aren't shy about it anymore. And they aren't shy about admitting their shared agendas either.

To vote, or not to vote: The People's Republic of Massachusetts

Yesterday, January 2, 2007, lawmakers in Massachusetts voted to allow a proposed amendment to the state constitiution to move forward. It will be on the ballot in 2008. This amendment would ban any further gay marriages in the state, but leave the existing ones alone.

Gay marriage has been legal in Massachusetts since 2003, after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that it was unconstitutional not to allow it. Opponents of the decision have so far been foiled in their attempts to put the matter to a vote. Even this most recent decision was almost derailed, after the state legislature recessed last fall without voting, then again with a vote to push this vote back to the 2nd, the final day of the session, and again on Tuesday, with Democratic Gov.-elect Deval Patrick urging lawmakers to skip the vote, and again with some back and forth voting on whether or not to reconsider. It finally went through with a vote of 62-134, giving it 12 more votes than the required 50. Supporters and opponents of gay marriage were both gathered outside the Statehouse, waving signs and such.

In addition to the blatant attempts to stiffle the democratic process by the left, I am also intrigued by what some of the gay rights activists outside the Statehouse told reporters. They said that the civil rights of a minority should not be put to a popular vote. What, so democracy is only a good thing if it doesn't conflict with your agenda? The reason activist judges are so popular with the left is because that's the only way they can get anything done. The people of this country don't want liberalism to rule their nation, which is why they almost always vote against it. Liberals know there aren't enough people in this country willing to vote for their warped ideals, so they use activist judges to force feed them to the people. Then, when the people finally demand a vote, the liberals do everything in their power to squash it before it ever gets to the ballots. It has happened here in California with a number of things, from illegal immigration laws to gay marriage.

Liberals don't believe in "majority rules", because they know that the majority isn't liberal. Liberals are elitist. They think that they know better, so it doesn't matter what the rest of the world wants because we're too stupid to know what's good for us. The peons shouldn't get to vote against the liberal garbage because they just simply aren't worthy enough to argue with their betters. That's the only explanation I can come up with, and their behavior to date seems to support it. Liberal politicians seem to think they can do whatever they want, and their money and status will rescue them if they get in trouble. They think they are above the law. When conservative politicians get in trouble their colleagues are often the first to turn them in. All their money and clout suddenly doesn't mean anything, and their base is no longer willing to support them. These are of course generalities, but they have been demonstrated on both sides time and time again.

This elitist mentality can be seen in their attitudes and policies toward the very minorities they claim to be protecting. They believe in things like affirmitive action, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and preferential treatment of "alternate gender lifestyles" because they honestly believe that minorities shouldn't be held to the same standards as the majority. They believe that if they were held to the same standards, they would fail to meet them. They believe that minorities aren't good enough.

Socialism is rule by the elite. Communism is rule by the elite. They placate the people while stripping them of their power. These are the two political models that modern liberalism venerates and tries to emulate. They don't care what the people want, they just want a free pass to do whatever THEY want. The democratic process be damned. And they are more than willing to step on the majority if it gets in their way.

The enemy of my enemy....

There was a conference in Iran recently, to discuss the Holocaust, and why the psychos of the world want people to believe it didn't happen. I won't bother to put a link to an article, since they are so numerous you shouldn't have any trouble finding one. And I'm not going to talk about the conference itself, or even the Holocaust deniers. I'm not going to try to disprove the lies, because if you don't already know they are lies then there's little I can do to help you. What I'm going to talk about is why this conference is the most dramatic in a series of recent examples of evil people, with completely incompatible agendas, coming together in ultimately unstable alliances for the purpose of destroying that which is good.

The conference was hosted by the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is arguably one of the most evil men of the last 100 years. He actively supports Islamic terrorism, with money, equipment, training, and propaganda. And he's not shy about it. He doesn't even try to hide it, even while trying to convince the western liberals that he wants peace and freedom for all people, like he did in his most recent letter. He aggressively and enthusiastically advocates the destruction of both The United States and Israel, and the imposition of Islamic rule over the whole world. He has delusions of grandeur, believing that he will be instrumental in the ushering in of the age of the Mahdi, the Islamic savior figure that will destroy the world.

One of the other more prominent participants of the conference was David Duke, the former national director of the KKK. If you aren't familiar with this man, I suggest you take a quick look at his website. His pure and unwavering hatred for Jews is staggering, and his paranoia of "Zionists" is pathological. It's clear from his writings that he's a narcissist with delusions of grandeur, seeing himself as some kind of hero figure that will save mankind from the Jews. His hatred for other groups of people is equally disturbing. He believes in eugenics against blacks, among other disgusting concepts, and still he claims to be Christian, but he seems to have no problem smearing the good name of Christianity and getting rather chummy with people who want to kill all Christians just as soon as they're done with the Jews.

The only thing these two men have in common is their blind hatred for Jews. Nothing else. Their agendas intersect nowhere else, other than perhaps their hatred of President Bush and western conservatism. Ahmadinejad wants Islamic rule, and the destruction of the west, Duke wants white supremacy, with his sick brand of Christianity. These agendas are mutually exclusive. They cannot coexist. And yet, there they were, cooperating simply for the purpose of advocating the destruction of Israel, one of a shrinking number of countries still dedicated to goodness. Without that evil desire to unite them, they would most likely have tried to kill each other.

This pattern has been repeated innumerable times in recent years, people with evil, yet incompatible agendas uniting in the hopes of destroying as much good as possible. Now, let me make myself clear. Not all liberals are evil. I wouldn't even say most liberals are evil. The vast majority of them are just confused and brainwashed. But the leaders of the various liberal groups, the ones that form the policy, the ones that disseminate the propaganda, that legislate and rally, those people are evil. The people that grab onto any scrap of an opportunity that might allow them to justify and praise abortion, the people that legislate to expunge Christmas from the American landscape, the people who want sexual "freedom" to replace marriage altogether, those people are evil.

Since so many people get caught up in the definition of words, trying to strip them of their meaning so that they are no longer good or bad, just neutral, let's quickly go over the definition of evil. The Christian definition of evil is anything that opposes the will of God. For any of you who might not believe in God, let's call it anything that is in opposition to goodness and the things that promote and support goodness. This can range anywhere from Charles Manson to kicking your neighbor's dog. Just as there are degrees of sin, there are degrees of evil. Supporting and advocating the destruction of everything that has made western society special in favor of behaviors and beliefs that have resulted in the destruction of other societies is evil.

So, while Islamic terrorism is probably a more blatant and clear-cut example of evil, the western liberal agendas are also evil. And yet, as I've explained in previous blogs, these two evils are completely incompatible. Liberals want to feminize the world and give preferential treatment to people of "alternate sexual lifestyles", while Islamic terrorists want to strip women of all their rights and slaughter homosexuals. And yet, they have allowed their animosity for Judeo-Christian values to bring them together in a perverse support for one another.

So I ask this question: what do they expect to happen after all the Christians and Jews are gone? To paraphrase one of my favorite radio personalities, Michal Medved, do they think daffodils are going to spring up out of the ground, fluffy bunnies will bounce through the streets, and gays and islamo-fascists will join hands and sing songs of freedom? Because that's not what would happen. Within a matter of days, the fighting would continue, now between the western liberals, the islamo-fascists, the communists, the racist groups of the world, and anyone else that was left. The entire world would erupt in pure anarchy as each group tried to impose its vile agenda on all the other groups. They don't seem to realize that the only thing holding this world together are the Judeo-Christian values that the west and many other parts of the world hold so dear. They're picking away at the foundation of humanity because it's the only thing keeping them from descending into the deepest basement of depravity. They're going to be surprised when the whole thing suddenly collapses on their heads.

The Iraq Study Group Report

I have not posted for almost a week, the reason being that after a minor problem with my ISP making line upgrades, the Iraq Study Group Report was released. I have spent the past few days reading it in its entirety, making my own analysis. Here it is.

This report does contain a number of very good suggestions, mostly about changes that need to be made to the Iraqi military and police forces, and changes in security procedures. The rest is garbage. To give a very quick and dirty summary, it suggests that we forgo increased military action against the enemies of Iraq in favor of increased diplomacy with all the people who are actively trying to pull Iraq down into chaos. And the best part? America should foot the bill!

The first suggestion of the report is The New Diplomatic Offensive. It consists of trying to get all the active psychopaths and the restrained psychopaths to agree on what's best for Iraq, to help it come about, and to help pay for it. It includes talking to Syria, Iran, and Palestine, enlisting their help in improving the regional situation. The report suggests that these countries could use their influence over the terrorists and violent sectarian groups in and around Iraq to ease tensions and advocate cooperation..... I'm sorry, did I miss something here? Why would they do that? If they had any intention of doing that, they would have done it already. If they wanted the terror and sectarian violence to end, they wouldn't be providing them with money, supplies, weapons, ammunition, training, propaganda dispersal, safe haven, or political legitimacy. It's like offering the Don of the Mafia a key role in an organized crime task force! All it would do would be to put those countries in an even better position to undermine our efforts in Iraq.

One of the telling features of this New Diplomatic Offensive is the fact that Israel has only one job to do: give up even more territory to Palestinians, and promise to play nice. Pardon my skepticism, but what the hell does giving back the Golan Heights have to do with Iraq? And what makes the Iraq Study Group think that it will convince the Palestinians to stop attacking Israel? Because it's worked so well in the past? I don't even think they believe it, every time they referred to the Palestinians, they had the following words in parentheses: (those who accept Israel’s right to exist). As if there are any. Even if the sorry excuse for a Palestinian government did agree to some kind of peace treaty, the Palestinian terrorists certainly wouldn't. And the Palestinian government has demonstrated time after time that they are either unwilling or unable to stop them.

In the military section of the report, the study group recommends that we use our continued support or removal thereof as an incentive for the Iraqi government to get off its butt and start making some progress of its own. Now, that would be a splendid idea, and it would probably work, except for one problem. At least half the reason the Iraqi government isn't making any progress is due to the aforementioned interference from other forces, including sectarian groups within the country, and other foreign forces assisting those groups. If we tell them that we're going to start cutting military and economic support if they don't make any progress, those other forces are going to triple their efforts to make absolutely sure that no progress is made. And if we make good on our threat, victory is theirs. And they know it.

Adding to the absurdity of this report is the indirect suggestion that America should pay for all the strategies recommended. The New Diplomatic Offensive includes trying to form an International Iraq Support Group, for the purpose of gathering other nations to assist with the political and financial burdens of helping Iraq. Once again, if other countries were going to help, they would have done it by now. The small handful of nations that are already helping us are either helping as much as they can, or as much as they are willing. A support group isn't going to change that. And the recommendations of just how much money we should be willing to spend doesn't take into account any hypothetical sum that's expected to suddenly materialize from the new and unprecedented cooperation of countries that either don't care or want us to fail. In other words, we're supposed to pick up the tab. And in addition to that, it's recommended that when we leave, we leave behind a portion of our military equipment for the Iraqi army. Not only is that stuff expensive, but it would only end up in the hands of our enemies anyway. The only way Iraq should get any of our hardware is if they BUY it from us AFTER they are secure.

All in all, this report suggests that more military action isn't the right solution, and we should try to negotiate with the monsters we're supposed to be destroying. It's no wonder that the only people who are happy about this report are the terrorists and the liberals. All the Islamic terror groups are calling this a great victory for Allah, holding it up as evidence that their tactics are working. If even a fraction of these recommendations are put into effect, not counting some of the Iraqi military reorganizations, we will lose the war. Period. And our enemies, foreign and domestic, know it.

There is only one way we can truly help Iraq out of the mess it's in. Full-blown martial law and lock-down of the borders. Anything that comes into or goes out of the country must be cleared in advance with the Iraqi government and the U.S. military. Spy satellites and perimeter sensors must monitor the borders, and if anything comes through without authorization, it should be carpet bombed with extreme prejudice. Insurgents and terrorists who are captured on the battlefield should be harshly interrogated and then executed publicly. We also need to let other nations in the region know that interference will not be tolerated. Once the insurgency has been crushed, once the country is secure, THEN real reconstruction can begin. The more we try to be gentle with this situation, the worse it gets. A little heavy-handedness is in order. Whatever happened to "shock and awe"? We aren't doing the people of Iraq any favors by trying to deflate the situation, we need to pop it. Trying to rebuild the government, infrastructure and economy of Iraq while there's an active insurgency at work is like trying to remodel your kitchen while the living room is on fire.

Racism, and the racist way in which the media treats it

I enjoy searching for and watching various video clips on YouTube.com. They have some pretty funny stuff. However, today I found something not so funny. The title caught my eye, and I watched it in disbelief. The video is of a C-SPAN broadcast from October 2005, more than a year ago. I want you to watch this video, and make sure your sound is clearly audible. Then, after you're done, I want you to ask the same question I'm asking. How, even after being broadcast live on C-SPAN, did this story not make headline news?

I also want you to watch this video. This is the video of Michael Richards losing it in the comedy club. This story most certainly made headline news. And not surprisingly, a celebrity going on a racist rant during a performance? Of course that's going to be big news. And the reaction from the media and people like Al Sharpton was predictable, as usual. But as shameful and idiotic as his comments were, I hardly think they compare with the seriousness of advocating, on live television, the extermination of white people.

Dr. Kamau Kambon, the gentleman in the first video who calls for genocide against white people, was actually a faculty instructor at NC State University at the time. I find it impossible to believe that this was the first time he had mentioned this particular opinion, and I doubt his extremist views had never been brought to the attention of any school officials. So why was he not fired? If Lawrence Summers could be forced into resignation for daring to assert that there are in fact differences between men and women, then why wasn't Dr. Kambon similarly pressured? Why was this man being allowed to teach the easily influenced youth of this country?

I would also like to know why C-SPAN was covering this public forum in the first place. Does anyone really care that much about what a bunch of racist malcontents have to say? You don't see networks giving air time to the idiots in the KKK, do you? And considering the fact that it appears in the video that there is only a handful of people in the audience, I seriously doubt that C-SPAN was counting on this to be a big event.

Why is it that minority racists get a free pass, while whites get trashed by the media for anything that might even resemble a non-minority-friendly comment? Granted, Michael Richards' rant was much more than unfriendly, and maybe now he'll think twice about opening his fat mouth. But Dr. Kambon's speech was downright psychotic! And the clapping! My God, the clapping from the sparse audience sent chills down my spine. As the doctor himself stated, there were minors in the audience. He encouraged minors to commit genocide. Isn't that some kind of crime? How does this not qualify as "hate speech"? If Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic statements were classified as hate speech by the liberals (as if they give a crap about Jews), then why is there no outrage against this nutcase? I don't buy the excuse that it wasn't big news because he's a relative nonentity. Plenty of conservative nonentities get dragged into the liberal spotlight all the time. It's as simple as this: no one said anything about it because he's black.

There's really only two possible explanations for why the media doesn't give the same kind of attention to minority racism as it does to white racism. First, they agree with the minority racists. For the most part, I doubt this is the case. Which leaves the second explanation: the liberal media, being racist in and of itself, sees minorities as so inconsequential that it gives no weight to their opinions, racist or otherwise. The only time the liberal media ever reports anything a minority has to say is when it somehow fits the liberal agenda, which is to use minorities as nothing more than a voting base, placating them with false promises and directing their anger towards conservatives. And genocide against whites does not fit their agenda, since the upper tiers of the liberal movement are in fact fabulously rich white people. Not to mention the fact that making a stink about Dr. Kambon's rant would weaken their grip on the opinions of their minority supporters. So they just let it go, secure in their belief that no one will take the crazy black man seriously. But some people most certainly will. I pray to God I never meet any of them.

Feminist Logic 101: Man = Predator

An online article from The Independent Institute has brought to light the increasing tendency for men, of all ages, shapes, sizes and colors, to be thought of as predators, simply for being men. The article discusses the relatively new policy of many airlines to forbid men from sitting next to an unaccompanied minor on an airplane. Their reasoning behind this is simple. To quote British Airways, "We were responding to a fear of sexual assaults".

There are jobs that men simply don't apply for any more. Jobs like teaching, day care, anything that deals with children. Is it because men don't like kids? Is it because they don't care? Of course not. It's because they're afraid. All a child (or parent) has to say is that their male teacher touched them, and the man's life is over, whether he did anything wrong or not. He could have patted them on the head, it doesn't matter. Even my mother had to stop hugging her 5th grade students because a parent complained. So imagine how much worse it is for men.

Some close friends of mine have had several disturbing experiences like this with their two little girls. Both of them are daddy's girls to the extreme. They will often hold their fathers hands while walking. There have been times when his wife was not around where people would look at him suspiciously or even follow him in a concerned manner as he headed towards his car with his two daughters in tow. He actually had to tell one guy to back off, explaining that these were his own children.

As mentioned in the article, the male paedophile scare isn't even supported by the data. The overwhelming percentage of all child abuse, sexual or otherwise, is committed by parents or caregivers. Abductions make up such a tiny percentage. And an estimated 25% of sexual abuse cases are committed by women. So does that mean that every fourth woman will be forbidden to sit next to a child on an airplane? And for crying out loud, what kind of moron is going to molest a child in such a public location as an airplane? They're surrounded by people, flight attendants are constantly walking up and down the aisle, and quite often the child's parents are somewhere else on the plane. And if they get caught, where are they going to run? As long as parents keep an eye on what their kids are doing, and don't let their daughters dress like sluts, they have very little to worry about. Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not one of those people who thinks that women who dress provocatively are asking to be raped, or that the men who do such things are in any way excused for their actions. But it's a fact of life that women who dress provocatively are much more likely to attract the attention of a predator, and little girls are no different.

The general trend of man-bashing, including the more recent development of scaring men away from the children in their lives, is a result of hyper-feminism. We are constantly being told that all things male are dirty and uncivilized. That men are too violent. That we can't control our sexual impulses. That we need to be feminized. Little boys are often no longer allowed to rough around during recess. They can't wrestle with their friends. They can't play around in the dirt. They get punished for being even the least bit male. They're supposed to be quiet and calm. Even the most well behaved little boy lacks the ability to be quiet and calm for more than 2 minutes. Little girls can be calm. Little boys can't. It's a basic fact of nature. But the feminist agenda to demonize all things male demands that they either calm down, or be sedated, with lithium, Ritalin, or a host of other ADHD medications. In 42 out of our 50 states, public schools can demand that parents drug their child, and it happens more often than you'd think. And almost exclusively to boys.

What do feminists think will happen to society if men stop being men? Or if they are so terrified to get near a child that they refuse to raise their own kids? And what are we teaching our children about the men in their lives? If little boys are afraid to become men, and little girls are afraid to be near men, what are fathers supposed to do? A feminist would tell you that a woman doesn't need a man to help her raise children. That children don't need a father in their lives. That men are merely the sperm donor, completely disposable after conception. Maybe they should just lock us all up in cages where we can't hurt anyone, extracting sperm as needed to continue the species.

I am a man. I am an uncle. I hope some day to be a father. I am a physically affectionate man. I love children. I enjoy playing with and snuggling my nieces and nephews, and I will do the same with my own children. And may God have mercy on anyone who tries to stop me.

You would have thought Nancy Pelosi wrote it

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, has written another letter, this time addressed to the American people in general. I urge you to read it before continuing to read this post. Go ahead, I'll wait..... Done? Good. Now let's dissect it like a specimen of verminous rodentia.

One of the more baffling things that is repeated several times throughout this letter is the assertion that the Iranian government shares America's commitment to truth, justice, and freedom. Just his stance on Israel disproves this all by itself. He denies the TRUTH of the holocaust, he believes Israel's efforts to defend itself from Palestinian attacks are UNJUST, and he sees Israel's little pocket of FREEDOM in the Middle East as a threat to be exterminated. So, what else did he lie about in this letter? Just about everything. Iran does not share our commitment to any of the values listed in this letter. This man truly is a modern-day Hitler.

It's not hard to notice that this letter seems like it could have been written by just about any Democrat in office right now. I think Ahmadinejad's writers must have spent some time browsing through MoveOn.org. Bush's war is illegal and immoral, Israel goes out of its way to target civilian Palestinians, evil Bush, evil Zionists, blah blah blah. He says that everyone hates terrorists. What he means is everyone hates Jews and Republicans. He tells the Democrats that now they have the power and the responsibility to use their new majority in Congress to make real peace in the world. And yet, just like the Democrats, he offers no suggestions on how to do that. Just like the Democrats, all he does say is that President Bush is doing it wrong.

Now, I wonder what kind of mental gymnastics liberals have to go through to hate Christians AND ignore all the references to God, and America being a God-fearing nation in this letter. Because apparently believing in God is okay, as long as you're not Christian or Jewish. Muslims who believe in God aren't labeled by liberals as intolerant, ignorant, irrational, like Christians are. They aren't accused of vast international conspiracies, like Jews are. Any time they're offered the chance, liberals are always more than happy to show us the completely backwards universe in which they live.

This letter was targeted not at the American people in general, but specifically at liberals. This letter was carefully designed to win support from the Democratic party and the leftist scum that supports it. And there's no doubt that it's working in many cases. The link to the letter is accompanied by some reader responses. Here are some of the more telling comments, unedited, from both sides of the spectrum:

I would say he's hypocrite. His govt's religous intolerance, opression of women, opression of free press and free speech and HIS many, many statments regarding violence (wipe Israel off the face of the earth, etc) hardly qualfies him or leaves ANY room to talk or to criticize another government!
— Jason Spears, Dallas

Dear Ahmadinejad, Thanks you for the letter that undoubtedly summarizes the feelings of most Americans. I, for one, hope that your message can help bring peace and stability to a region torn by War since the beginning of time.
— Brian, Chicago

Bravo! What are you doing from 2008 to 2012?
— Anonymous

Obviously the war on Terror is having the correct affect on Iran. . . . If they want the Democrats in power then what does that say about the policies of the Democratic Party.
— Brad, Winnie, Texas

It seems that the social polarization is well on its way. The majority of the reader responses either praise Ahmadinejad unabashedly, or call him a liar. There are very few that fall somewhere inbetween. But this letter will have much of its desired affect. The leftists now have even more love for terrorists and even more hate for President Bush. They will use this letter as ammunition, claiming that it proves Iran is not a threat. And they'll make it even harder for the president to do his job by making it look like he's opposed to peaceful dialog. Because they really believe everything that monster said. Only a child would be fooled by this letter, and yet look at how many liberals are falling for it.

Honor among psychopaths

A news broadcast, now posted on NewsOK.com, has reported a disturbing example of one of the problems with Islam. A Muslim man in Tulsa Oklahoma named Jamal Miftah decided he had finally had enough after seeing yet another Al Qaeda video calling for jihad. He wrote a column, published in the Tulsa World on October 29, describing his anger and sadness over what people like Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden have done in the name of Islam. There's a copy of it here, accompanying a blog on westernresistance.com that discusses the incident. Mr. Miftah calls these terrorists what they are, cowards and criminals, and berates them for taking advantage of Muslim youth for their heinous acts of violence. He begs Muslims around the world to take back their religion and earn back the right to claim it as a religion of peace. You would think that the other members of his mosque would receive this column with praise, and relief that someone had finally said it. That's assuming of course that any of them actually agreed with him.

Apparently they don't. They accused him of betraying his faith and told him that he is no longer welcome at the mosque. They even threatened him. He was told that the only way he would be allowed back is by retracting his column and apologizing for insulting fellow Muslims. And thus we are brought to one of the most fundamental problems with Islam. Their warped concept of honor.

The aforementioned blog on this topic informed me of something I was not previously aware of. Muslims have a concept called takfeer. Takfeer is the act of condemning the actions or beliefs of another Muslim, and it is not taken lightly. Only senior clerics are permitted to do so. They are taught that a Muslim who criticizes another Muslim in front of non-believers will be punished for it on the day of judgement. This is one of the reasons that so many Muslims may be afraid to denounce terrorists. It's not so much that they're afraid of being targeted by them, though they probably are. They are afraid of dishonoring their religion and being made to pay for it after death. That's why so many Muslims will say that they condemn acts of terrorism, or groups like Al Qaeda, but never mention any of the perpetrators by name. It's why some Muslims who may in fact be horrified by the senseless violence committed in the name of Islam will still describe Osama bin Laden as a good Muslim.

This concept of takfeer meshes rather seamlessly with other Islamic ideas about honor. The Pope cited a long dead emperor's quote describing Islam as a violent and irrational religion, and Muslims around the world immediately proved him right by rioting, burning churches, killing westerners and Christians, and chanting about the impending destruction of the infidels. The reason they reacted like this is because the Muslim sense of honor demands revenge for any insult. "How dare you call us violent, we'll kill you for that!" The controversial Danish cartoons depicting Mohammad with a bomb in his turban sparked similar reactions. Revenge killings are still commonplace in most Islamic countries, and the authorities turn a blind eye. Someone insults the honor of another, and the entire clan of the offended party will raid the home of the person who insulted their kin. I recall reading about one such incident in Iraq where all the men in the house were shot, all the boys were hanged, and then all the women and even a girl as young as 8 years old were gang raped. Why? Because it was the honorable thing to do. There's an article on FrontPageMagazine.com that provides chilling examples of gang rape being a sanctioned and legally protected method of punishment for young women and even prepubescent girls who are found guilty of dishonoring their family. Even in European countries Muslims and their entire families have been murdered after doing something that offended the local Muslim community. I pray such a thing does not happen to Mr. Miftah and his family.

Christianity is a religion based on the pursuit of truth and goodness. Embarrassment or saving face doesn't factor into it. If a Christian does something horrible, Christians are the first to condemn them. By name. Christian radicals that have bombed abortion clinics are shunned by the rest of their faith, as their community apologizes for the behavior of one of its own. Islam is much more concerned with looking good than actually being good. It doesn't matter if what your fellow Muslims are doing is despicable, you support them because they're Muslim. Perhaps that's one of the reasons they get along so well with liberals.

Mr. Miftah is a courageous man. Unfortunately he also seems to be one in a million Muslims who loves truth more than honor. Even if the vast majority of Muslims disagree with the radicals of their faith (and I'm not convinced they do), even if they're horrified by the bombings and the executions, even if they want it to stop, the fact that they refuse to actually do or even say anything about it calls into question where their loyalties really lie. If it came down to a choice between supporting or even joining Muslim radicals, or siding with America to put down the vile beasts threatening the rest of humanity, which would they choose? If we get close to crushing radical Islam, or if we are again forced to invade or even destroy an Islamic nation, will the "moderate" Muslims still be on our side? If they can't even insult a fellow Muslim, how can we expect them to sit quietly while we exterminate the darker side of their religion? I think we should be prepared for the distinct possibility of Muslims rising up en masse to blindly "defend" their faith.

On a side note, I went to the website of Tulsa World, the paper that originally published Mr. Miftah's column. All that remains is one reader comment on the column. The link to it now leads to an expired page. The column is nowhere to be found on the entire site. It's not even in the archives. I'm curious to know the exact reasons for the removal of the column.

Step 1: Castrate America. Step 2: Mock its impotence

Are liberals really surprised at the trouble we are having in the war on terror? After all, they worked so hard to cause it, you'd think they would at least take some credit. They've spent so much time and effort trying to castrate this great nation and its leaders, and now they're complaining about our inability to perform.

Earlier this month, The American Prospect featured an article doing just that. In it the author points to our relative lack of progress in the war on terror as evidence of President Bush's incompetence and flawed policies. What he fails to acknowledge is the fact that the seeds of destruction liberals have been cultivating so carefully are finally starting to bear their bitter fruit. He cites the deteriorating situations in Iraq, Iran and North Korea as examples of how our nation's power and status have been squandered and diluted, while making no mention of the vigorous campaign to do exactly that.

Conservatives are more aware than anyone of the dismal state the war on terror is in. It's hard not to notice when everything you work toward is systematically sabotaged. The President has been thwarted at every turn in his efforts to wage this war in a fashion that might actually secure a victory. From the media's shameless and treasonous leaks of sensitive and even classified information to the open support for and fraternization with high profile individuals who would like nothing more than to see this great nation burn, the left has done everything it can think of to derail our efforts in this war.

So let's take these examples one at a time, shall we? Iraq is a mess. Their fledgling democratic government seems unwilling to do anything that might eventually ween them off the teet of American support. The Sunnis and Shiites are hell-bent on destroying one another. The police have been infiltrated by terrorist organizations. And our own troops are being charged with war crimes for doing their job. So what do liberals expect to happen when our military is told that they don't have permission to conduct actual military operations, and if they do they'll be court martialled? Do they expect morale to improve? Do they expect to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies? I'm amazed at the courage of our troops that they aren't afraid to fire their weapons for fear that they'll go to jail. The leftist media spend all their time plastering pictures of dead civilians all over prime time, trying to convince us that as many as 100,000 Iraqis have died as a result of American military actions, even though the Iraqis themselves say it's not true. They lie about the conduct of our people in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, and spread the enemy's own propaganda about our troops storming into people's houses and raping the women, killing the men, and kidnapping the children, and they wonder why Islamic radicals are streaming into Iraq to fight the evil crusaders. They claim that our mere presence there is what causes and fuels the conflict. I suppose their gas on the fire didn't have much to do with it.

Iran grows bolder by the day. They openly mock the U.N.'s efforts to curb their nuclear ambitions, and are anything but shy about their commitment to the extermination of Israel. Their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, continually expresses his support for evil regimes, such as North Korea, Venezuela, and offers safe harbor for Islamic terrorist organizations. And what reason, if any, have we given him to be afraid of the consequences of his actions? Even denouncing him, or making veiled threats, or attempting to get the world community to at least express its displeasure results in venom and ridicule from the liberals. How dare we treat a sovereign nation like that! How dare we threaten a democratically elected leader! Who does Bush think he is, the president or something? The liberals try to turn every suggestion of sanctions or condemnations into an indication that the president is going to carpet bomb every daycare center in Tehran. Every time he tries to bare his teeth at the rabid animal in charge of Iran, the liberals punch him in the mouth and accuse him of being a racist imperialist. And as everyone knows, the worst thing to do with a rabid animal is to show weakness.

North Korea recently tested a nuclear device. They said they were going to. They even told us when and where. Did anyone try to stop them? Oh, please don't, we'll be upset if you do.......... hey, we might even write you a really nasty letter. Well, maybe not, we don't want to provoke you into anything extreme, like testing a nuke.....wait.... Kim Jong-il probably isn't stupid enough to actually attack someone with a nuclear weapon, but he might just be crazy enough. Not to mention the fact that he has already talked to Iran about selling them one. But vaporizing some poor unsuspecting city probably isn't his real goal. He knows from past dealings with the Clinton administration that America can be bullied into handing over hundreds of millions of dollars in food, oil, and cold hard cash in an effort to appease him. We even gave the psycho a nuclear reactor! And he's counting on that trick working again and again. Because even if he's not willing to fire a nuke at someone, everyone knows that Iran is. So all he has to do is threaten to sell his shiny new nukes to Iran, and the leftists in the west will cave, just like they always do. And in the mean time, he's free to continue abusing his citizens like a cruel child with an ant farm. After all, who's going to stop him?

The liberals complaining about the president's failed policies is like someone drilling a hole in a barrel and then complaining that it won't hold water. They've done everything in their power to assure that everything Republicans try to do will fail, and now that they've actually succeeded they insist on punishing the very people they've sabotaged. If you break a horse's leg, you can't whip it for not winning the race.

A snapshot of American liberalism

Want a quick glimpe of what American liberals really think? Here are some samples from various liberal blogs and news sources:

In response to a blog post suggesting that liberals should shut down the government:
"We either do it now, while we can still communicate on the Internet, or wait until its too late, when all the Haliburton detention camps are constructed, when Bush has invaded Iran and a wave of flag-waving fascists descends upon all those who disagree."

In response to a blog post about Congressman Charles Rangel's defense of President Bush after being insulted by Hugo Chavez:
"What is U.S. Congressman Charles Rangél doing? Is he betraying the Democratic Party? He's bashing Hugo Chavez and defending Bush. It is very disturbing and alarming to see a Democrat, especially a monority, to critize an international Hispanic leader and ally by expressing sympathy for Bush and his racist Republicans. Has Mr. Rangél gone loco? Has he turned into a rogue Democrat? Is he a traitor? Hopefully Mr. Rangél has an ulterior motive. But as Democrats we must be careful not to create the slightest impression that our strong united coalition has a crack in it. I consider all minorities (African-Americans, Hispanics of course, Muslims, American Indians and all to be my brothers in the cause of solidarity). We must remain united. Solidarity is the key to victory. We do not need dissent."

A segment of a blog post detailing what liberals want Democrats to do with their new majority in Congress. This portion accuses the Bush administration of suppressing freedom of speech:
"Our first amendment has taken a terrific beating under the Bush presidency. Americans who wish to protest against their government are restricted to 'first amendment zones', with the obvious purpose of impeding the opportunity for other American citizens to hear them. The Bush administration routinely denies White House access to journalists who report what the administration wishes to suppress. They sponsor propaganda disguised as genuine news. And they even threaten to and actually jail reporters who report information that they don’t approve of. To compound these presidential actions, our national news media has largely become a tool of the wealthy, replacing the independent news media..."

From an opinion piece on LATimes.com, saying that there are no other more feasible options:
"So allow me to propose the unthinkable: Maybe, just maybe, our best option is to restore Saddam Hussein to power. Yes, I know. Hussein is a psychotic mass murderer. Under his rule, Iraqis were shot, tortured and lived in constant fear. Bringing the dictator back would sound cruel if it weren't for the fact that all those things are also happening now, probably on a wider scale."

From an opinion piece in the Progressive Daily Beacon on America's rapidly polarizing society:
"How America became polarized is simple. More than thirty years ago, the Republican Party set out on a mission to divide the country. Early on they used race-based wedge issues to make inroads into the South. Come to think of it, if the recent senate campaign in Tennessee is any indication, that whole race-based wedge issue trick remains a vital and vibrant part of today's Republican electoral strategy. When pitting Anglo-American against African-American finally failed to get the big results, Republicans turned to the so-called social issues. They rode abortion for all it was worth. Then the Republicans simply declared war. They call it a 'culture war,' but for them it is a very real war. In some cases, regarding doctors that provide abortions, the Republican war has become a shooting war...and at abortion clinics, a bombing war."

These are their own words, spelling errors and all, modified in no way. I encourage you to click on the links and read these posts and articles in their entirety. Look at some of the reader comments as well, they're terrifying.

Discrimination for the sake of diversity....?

Apparently the left no longer believes in equal protection under the law. At least that's how it would appear, since now it seems to be an unforgivable breach of liberal diversity dogma for a law firm to even represent a client in a case against afirmitive action practices. According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, a Minneapolis law firm has been excluded from an effort to increase the ethnic diversity of the legal practice in Minnesota, simply for representing three University of Michigan applicants in a case that challenged the university's race-based admissions practices. The Twin Cities Diversity in Practice group claims that allowing such a firm to participate in their diversity efforts would "hinder" their mission.

This means that the left believes two very disturbing things. First, they believe that only minorities deserve legal council in cases of discrimination, or that non-minorities shouldn't even be making discrimination claims, and second, they believe that anyone that helps them do so should be labeled as racist. Please note in the article that one of the lawyers responsible for the decision to reject the firm in question said that minority law students often associate the Maslon firm with its role in the affirmative action suit. So what? Do they feel threatened somehow? Do they think they can't get into law school without special treatment? Because if they do, THEY SHOULDN'T BE IN LAW SCHOOL!!!

It amazes me that many minorities don't seem to realize that being told by the left that they aren't good enough to accomplish things on their own is a horribly racist insult. If someone told me that being white meant that I was too stupid to get into college on my own merit, I would be hard pressed not to punch them in the face! Some of the early efforts to end discrimination in schools and business were admirable. They simply attempted to prevent qualified minorities from being excluded based on their race. But it quickly snowballed from there, and as laws were passed and policies were drafted, it quickly became standard operating procedure to give favorable treatment to minorities, going so far as giving them bonus points on college entrance exams, and overlooking academic or workplace disciplinary actions on their records. It has now gotten to the point where schools and businesses are hiring disproportionate numbers of minorities in an effort to appease the now bastardized civil rights organizations. This should infuriate everyone of every ethnicity. They're telling us that if minorities are too stupid to do it on their own, and if they're still to stupid to do it with help, then they'll just start knocking the whites down a couple of pegs to make minorities LOOK better by comparison. If that doesn't piss you off, then there's something wrong with you.

Artificially warping society to fit some half-baked idea on what the ethnic spectrum should look like isn't going to change anything. This is another example of the liberal tendency to try and make something appear as if it's improving, rather than actually trying to improve it. It's far easier to bring the standard down than it is to elevate the population. But the left simply doesn't tolerate anyone pointing that out. And if you do point it out, or if you try to do something about it, suddenly you no longer qualify for "inclusion".

Compassion

I actually wrote this piece about a year ago, but I thought it would make a good addition to this blog. It's kinda long, but I hope you enjoy it.

The subject of compassion is one that I learned a lot about working in a hospital. I was a phlebotomist at a university hospital in southern California for three years, working in the lab and collecting blood samples from the patients upstairs and in the ER, before I decided to go back to school and get my degree in programming. Before that, I worked in a veterinary office, assisting the doctor with the animals. Healthcare, both human and otherwise, is a field not to be attempted by those with weak stomachs. I saw some truly horrible things, things I didn’t want to see, but I’m glad I did. Some things can only be learned the hard way.

At the animal hospital I saw dogs that had literally been neglected to death. I saw cats with lead pellets in them. I saw two mangled pit bulls which, despite what one would have guessed, were the sweetest animals, even after being made to fight other dogs to the death. I saw a woman who had made her dog desperately ill, and kept it that way, just to get drugs for herself. During my time there, I assisted in so many euthanasias of dying animals that I lost count. It was heartbreaking, but some of those animals were in such agony that it was admittedly a relief to see them relax, fall asleep, and stop breathing.

At the human hospital I saw a toddler with a serious concussion, a cracked rib, a broken leg, and a sprained arm, all caused by a violent father. I saw car accident victims teetering on the edge of death. I saw a white supremacist with six bullet wounds to the chest and back, who was somehow still alive, if only barely. I saw cancer patients fighting their disease valiantly, and others who had given up. It was always the kids that got to me the most.

My first experience with a pediatric patient was when I was still in training. Myself and two other students had gone upstairs with one of the veterans. She was very good at her job, and we learned a lot from her. She asked us if we were up to helping with a little kid. We said sure. It was a little girl, four years old, cute little thing, and they were still trying to figure out what was wrong with her. She had had fifteen blood draws in less than two days, and she was not happy to see us. Neither was her poor mother. I felt so sorry for that woman. She looked like she wanted to hit someone, but she agreed to let us do our job. She went downstairs, not trusting herself to be in the same room while we made her daughter cry.

It’s amazing how strong a sick child can be. We three students held her down, wrapped in a sheet, while the old pro stuck her with the needle. The fear and pain in that little girl’s screams were almost unbearable. It was clear that she didn’t understand why we were hurting her when she already felt terrible, and why her mother wasn’t stopping us, and we couldn’t explain it to her. I had never experienced anything like it before, and it shook me to my soul. Later that day, while talking to my mother about it, I broke down and cried, trying to explain what it was like. She has had lots of experience with small children, since she was a public school teacher for sixteen years. She told me that the height of compassion is doing what is truly in someone else’s best interest, even if they don’t agree. This applies especially to children. I already understood this on an intellectual level, but I was emotionally unprepared for such a dramatic example as that little girl.

During the rest of my training to become a phlebotomist I had several more experiences with children that tested my own sense of compassion. I would often think back to that little girl, and I finally managed to convince myself emotionally that I was doing the right thing by collecting blood from emphatically opposed children. I decided that I could help them the most by becoming as skilled as possible in my job, so as to make the process as fast and efficient as I could, thus reducing the trauma to the child. I started volunteering for all the pediatric draws I could get, and sure enough, I became exceptionally good at drawing from children, even babies. Nurses on the pediatric units would ask for me by name. I even got pretty good at reassuring the kids, convincing the ones that were old enough that it would only hurt a little bit for just a second, and then it would be over.

Of course, not all of them could be so easily soothed. Most of the time it was several nurses holding the kid down while I got in and out as fast as possible. But there were a number of times when either a parent, or even a nurse, would be upset that we were going so fast, and they would want to slow down and try to calm the child. What they didn’t seem to realize was that the longer we stood there trying to get the kid to relax, the more riled up they would get, and the more afraid they would become, and the more afraid they would be next time. Anticipation of imminent pain is not something that children are good at dealing with. I would try to explain this, and suggest that the faster we got it over with, the sooner the kid could calm down for real, and get some rest. If that meant hogtying the kid and piling nurses on them to give me a steady target, so be it. Sometimes they listened, and sometimes they didn’t.

Then there were the parents that would refuse to let us draw the child’s blood. I watched doctors and nurses beg and plead with parents, trying to explain that they couldn’t properly treat the child without the blood test results. The parents were understandably distraught, but they seemed more concerned with not upsetting the child than with the child’s eventual recovery.

Over the past two years or so, I have come to the conclusion that there are two types of compassion. Blind compassion, and enlightened compassion. Blind compassion is the parent refusing the blood draw for fear of making their child cry again. Blind compassion is the nurse who wants to delicately and gently draw the kids blood while the poor kid screams their head off and hyperventilates for twenty minutes. It comes in other forms as well.

There are far more good intentioned people on this planet than malicious people. The fact that civilization can exist at all is proof of this. And many of these people do what they can to help others. But there is a serious problem in the way many of these people think about their assistance to others. There are many people who believe that poverty can be solved simply by throwing more money into the welfare system. There are people that believe that the horrible suffering in many parts of Africa can be solved if only powerful nations like ours would give a few more billion dollars to the governments of desperate countries. As if all those people are missing is money. It has become politically incorrect to even discuss the real reasons behind human suffering, such as lack of education, corrupt dictators, and loss of basic moral values.

My younger sister had an experience in college that illustrates blind compassion very effectively. In a social sciences class she had, the class was discussing world hunger. There was a young man who worked himself up into a full blown rant, berating the U.S. government for allowing people in other countries to go hungry. He couldn’t understand what was so hard about simply taking a huge load of food over to a needy area and giving it to the people. My sister, being the thoughtful and rational person that she is, interrupted his tirade in order to explain to him the immense logistics that go into moving that much food that far, including the legal and diplomatic difficulties often encountered. As if he hadn’t even heard her explanation, the young man wanted to know what was preventing someone from simply taking a crate of Ramen Noodles (yes, he said Ramen Noodles), getting on a plane, flying to a third world country, and giving the noodles to some starving family. My sister tried to explain what a colossally inefficient use of philanthropic money that was, and how unlikely it was that the third world country of his choice would even let him through customs with a crate of food, and that it was far more likely that they would simply confiscate it, and send him packing. She then gave examples of how even well established and reasonably well funded professional charity organizations, like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army and the Peace Corps, have trouble getting into some places. And once they do get in, they often need military escorts to protect them from a variety of threats. The passionate young man in her class then suggested that we could simply give all the food to the government of the target country, since they would be better able to distribute it where it was needed most. My sister replied that the food would most likely never reach the starving citizens, and would instead be given to the military, or sold. The young man had no coherent response to this, and simply refused to believe that it was that hard.

This way of thinking has become all too common in this country, particularly amongst the Liberal population. Born of the hippie movement, which thought that love and peace would solve all the world’s problems, the idea that material and financial charity is enough has rooted itself firmly in the ideology of the political left. As if love and peace can be pulled out of thin air and spread around the world with a wish and a song.

People who subscribe to these ideas are still under the delusion that “war never solves anything”. Tell that to the Jews. They are under the delusion that if we all just kiss and make up, then everyone will play nice and peace will prevail. Tell that to the Islamic terrorists. Liberals honestly believe that it is morally wrong to invade a country in order to liberate its oppressed citizens. They seem to lack one very crucial piece of understanding. There is real evil in this world, and it won’t play nice no matter how politely we ask it to.

Their warped understanding of true evil has been illustrated by the common use among Liberals of the terms “holocaust” and “Hitler”. They attempt to equate situations they find distasteful and the people involved in trying to make the best of a bad situation to one of the most blatant and clear cut examples of true evil in the history of humanity. They refuse to acknowledge the fact that there are evil people actively trying to prevent peace and love, who will run rampant unless checked by people willing to do the right thing by fighting them, no matter how distasteful it may be.

A perfect example of this mentality is the Liberal opposition to the current war in Iraq. They believe that the only reason our forces are encountering any resistance at all is that their mere presence there has provoked it. That our enemies are blowing up police stations and school busses because they fear a loss of independence at the hands of Westerners. They have deluded themselves into believing that withdrawing American troops will quell the fears of the insurgent forces and convince them to stop fighting. They simply will not accept the fact that these people do not want Iraq to be free. That the enemy is committed to maintaining the status quo in the area of fear and oppression, and that withdrawing our troops will leave nothing to stop them from doing just that.

Liberals simply cannot wrap their minds around the idea that there are evil people who want to do evil things. And when they are confronted by an undeniable example of this unpleasant fact they attempt to explain it in other ways. They say that the terrorists are merely trying to preserve their own culture, and they don’t understand that we are trying to help them. They say that we need to try to understand how they must feel, and that with enough understanding and compassion, we can convince them that we are not their enemies. Even after captured terrorists have gleefully exclaimed their commitment to the extermination of America, and described how the children of the infidels shall burn in the fire of Allah’s wrath, the Liberals remain incapable of understanding that these people are evil.

Now, it’s important that we understand something else. It’s true that not all people who do evil things are themselves truly evil. There were Nazis who had been so brainwashed that they honestly believed that the extermination of the Jews was necessary for the future of the master race, and these people had been poisoned to believe that they were doing the right thing. The same is probably true for many Islamic terrorists. They have been poisoned since birth to believe that the infidels must die, and that they must accomplish this by any and all means necessary, because this is what Allah commands. But behind the people who lacked the ability to see through the poison are the people who are the source of that poison. And these people are truly evil. They understand exactly what they are doing, and they do it anyway. They relish the pain and suffering of other people, and no amount of counseling or therapy will change them. These are the Hitlers and the Bin Ladens who mastermind tremendous acts of pure evil like the holocaust and the September 11th attacks on America. Unfortunately, the pathetic souls that they get to carry out these evils are so poisoned that they are beyond any hope of recovery. They cannot be changed, and they will fight to the death, regardless of anything we try to do to help them. I pray that God has mercy on such people.

But I have strayed from my original topic. Liberals believe that the compassionate thing to do would be to withdraw our troops from Iraq, to avoid exposing the Iraqi people to more warfare. This is blind compassion. War bad. Peace good. This is the extent of the Liberal understanding on the subject.

The Conservative view is that war, when properly executed, is like surgery, and occupation is like physical therapy. There was a cancer in Nazi Germany, and it metastasized into the rest of Europe. Allied forces eliminated the cancer much like chemotherapy does. Chemotherapy is not gentle on the patient’s body. It’s toxic. Fortunately, it’s a little more toxic to the cancer than it is to the patient. The idea is to use chemotherapy and radiation, and sometimes surgery, to kill the cancer before killing the patient. Justified war attempts to eliminate evil while causing as little collateral damage as possible. Expecting zero collateral damage is as unreasonable and impossible as expecting cancer treatment to be gentle on the patient. Once the cancer is in remission, physical therapy attempts to help the patient to recover, to build their body back up to a healthy state. A military occupation attempts to do the same thing. Our forces in Iraq are trying to support that country and its people while they rebuild their homeland. The cancer that was there left it terribly weak and unable to support itself alone. Without therapy, it will decay back into what it was, or worse. The cancer may come out of remission, or a new disease may take hold. Pulling our forces out of Iraq prematurely is morally comparable to discontinuing a patient’s treatment because it’s uncomfortable, but on a much larger scale. Unfortunately for Iraq, it looks as if the cancer is either coming out of remission on its own, or it went deeper than we thought in the first place.

Enlightened compassion is realizing when a painful or difficult solution is the right one, and acting on it, regardless of the discomfort. This is similar to my father’s definition of courage. He says that courage is doing what’s right, even if it’s hard, or scary, or painful. Enlightened compassion is the same thing. And it takes tremendous courage to have enlightened compassion, because some problems are not easy to fix.

Poverty is not merely the lack of material or financial resources. Poverty is the end result of many factors. A lack of education leads to a poor selection of professions, which results in low income. A lack of education also results in a poor understanding of family dynamics which, when combined with low income, results in poorly raised and undernourished children. Moral standards begin to collapse as an environment of crime, exacerbated by poor education, and hopelessness invades the minds of these children. They grow up with a victim’s mentality. Their home life and nutritional standards contribute to poor performance in school, in addition to decreased cultural value placed on education. This is a repeating cycle, which inevitably results in a subculture that places no value on education, has terrible moral standards, and has itself convinced that there is no hope of changing their situation.

Throwing money at real poverty does more harm than good, for several reasons. First, poverty-stricken people don’t have the financial skills or discipline to handle large amounts of money. For example, look at the number of poor people who win the lottery, only to declare bankruptcy in less than a year. Second, giving handouts, while appearing generous, has the side effect of making the recipient feel resentful and entitled at the same time. The more you give them, the more ashamed they become, and as soon as you stop giving it to them, they feel you are denying them what they deserve. Third, money without the ability to make more creates dependency. If someone gets so accustomed to a welfare check that they go generations without educating themselves, they will become totally unable to survive without welfare. And last but not least, it is impossible to raise everyone above the poverty line with welfare. There simply isn’t enough money in the world. They will still be poor, but now they expect you to somehow drag them out of poverty, convinced that you’re holding out on them.

Before you can help the poor, you need to help them change their attitude and behavior. Education is the most important factor in alleviating poverty. They must learn how to support themselves and their family, and their children must learn to value education. Adults can learn trade skills relatively quickly, and begin supporting their families. Children will learn if you give them the means to do so and encourage their efforts. The hardest part is breaking people out of that victim’s mentality.

Unfortunately the political left has far too many people convinced that this would be the wrong thing to do. They believe that the compassionate thing to do is to give them that extra money, and tell them their situation isn’t their fault. Liberals seem bent on reinforcing the victims mentality of the poor and minority groups, which are far too often one and the same. This has led me to the conclusion that Liberals are morally lazy. They are far more concerned with appearing to be doing the right thing than actually doing the right thing. They want their caring and concern to be acknowledged by others so that they can feel better about themselves. They institute social policies that do nothing but reinforce the social problems, but convince themselves that they are doing the compassionate thing. Problems with schools? Here’s some more money. Look, we gave the schools billions of dollars, see how compassionate we are? Students are still having problems, even after all that money? It must be that they are being discriminated against, so we’ll alter the testing criteria to make them pass. Now they’re getting better scores, see how compassionate we are? People in Africa are dying at a horrific rate from AIDS? Let’s send the corrupt governments of the African countries a gigantic check and ask them to use it to help their people. See how compassionate we are? What, they didn’t use it to help their people? We’ll just send them another check and explain to them how important it is to use the money to help their people. See how compassionate we are? Someone is going to be executed? He raped and murdered five school children? Well that doesn’t give us the right to murder him in return, so we’ll do everything in our power to stop the execution, because even psychopaths deserve compassion. I’m sure with the proper counseling he could be rehabilitated and become a productive member of society again. He’s only been out of jail for a month, and already he’s raped and murdered another eight year old? Okay, maybe he really should be removed from society, but we still can’t kill him. After all, psychopaths are people too. See how compassionate we are?

Liberals have managed to delude themselves into believing that difficult problems can be solved easily because they don’t have the stomach for doing the right thing. Poor people need money, so we’ll give them money. Violence to fight violence is just more violence, so we’ll just try to negotiate while a dictator slaughters his own people and makes empty promises. They want to feel like they’ve done the right thing, so they brainwash themselves into believing that whichever “solution” is the easiest must be the right one. And they call it compassion.