Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education
- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
A majority of Americans disapprove of the way President Barack Obama is handling the oil spill off the Gulf Coast, but a majority of Americans also said BP hasn’t done enough to stop the spill.
Some 69% said BP has done less — or much less — than what should be expected of the oil company. However, Americans don’t think much of the president, Congress, or the federal government’s response, either.
President Barack Obama is briefed on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico aboard Air Force One en route to New Orleans, La., Sunday, May 2, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama listens to Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, right, during a briefing on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, aboard Air Force One en route to New Orleans, La., Sunday, May 2, 2010. Also participating in the meeting are, from left, John Brennan, assistant to the President for homeland security and counterterrorism, Carol Browner, assistant to the President for energy and climate change, and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen, left, who is serving as the National Incident Commander, and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, right, brief President Barack Obama about the situation along the Gulf Coast following the BP oil spill, at the Coast Guard Venice Center, in Venice, La., Sunday, May 2, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama, National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen, and Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph look at the effect the BP oil spill has had on Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon, La., May 28, 2010. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)
One of the Presidential helicopters flies over southern Louisiana as President Barack Obama returns to New Orleans after visiting Grand Isle, May 28, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy
President Obama removed Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as commander of American forces in Afghanistan on Wednesday, and tapped as his replacement the general’s boss, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of the 2007 surge in Iraq.
Mr. Obama, standing with General Petraeus and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the White House Rose Garden to underline the continuity and solidity of his Afghan policy, said that he had regretfully accepted General McChrystal’s resignation.
He said he had done so not out of personal insult, but because a magazine article featuring contemptuous quotes from the general and his staff about senior administration officials had not met standards of behavior for a commanding general, and threatened to undermine civilian control of the military.
“War is bigger than any one man or woman, whether a private, a general or president,” Mr. Obama said. “As difficult as it is to lose General McChrystal, I believe it is the right decision for national security.”
Parents are outraged after young teenagers were instructed on graphic sexual acts during a Planned Parenthood sex education class at the local high school in Shenandoah, Iowa.
“It was horribly inappropriate,” Colleen Dostal told Fox News Radio. “To do that in a mixed-gender classroom, — I truly believe it was inappropriate.”
Dostal’s 14-year-old son was one of a handful of eighth graders in the class. The students, she said, were given instruction on how to perform female exams and the instructor used a 3-D, anatomically correct male sex organ to explain how to use a condom.
But Dostal said she was most upset over the instructor simulating sexual acts using stuffed animals designed to resemble STD’s.
“I do not understand why any adult with a classroom of children would show them sexual positions,” she told Fox News Radio. “I think that’s horribly inappropriate.”
As for the photographs, “I believe some of those photos were pornographic,” she said.
“Had we known this was going on, I would have sat in the classroom or I would have pulled him out,” Dostal said.
Yeah. Well.
I'll bet she bans MTV from the house as well. Hard to keep those Gaga and Katy Perry viddies away from the kiddies these days, and that to say nothing of those dawg bump-and grind viddies that show up on the BET-style cable outlets.
Yeah, that sounds about right. A little roundup, at WSJ:
President Barack Obama and U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal will meet in person today at the White House. The president said Tuesday that he had not yet made up his mind if he would ask for the general’s resignation for disparaging comments he made about the Obama administration’s national security team to Rolling Stone magazine.
ON Tuesday, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, was called back to Washington to explain disparaging comments he and his aides made to a Rolling Stone reporter about senior administration officials. The general’s ill-advised remarks, which have prompted him to prepare a letter of resignation, will only feed the general sense of despair and impatience that Americans seem to feel about our progress in Afghanistan.
Great comparative analysis of Afghanistan and Iraq, and then:
By letting his aides mouth off to a reporter, General McChrystal has displayed a potentially fatal lack of media savvy. But he deserves credit for energizing a lethargic command and putting in place the right strategy to turn around a failing war effort. Whether or not he carries it out, his plan can work. We just need to give it a little time.
A couple of weeks back, Rob at Say Anything suggested the potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitch Daniels' call for a "truce" on social issues was a "breath of fresh air."
I can understand the sentiment, but I'm certain that the other side won't observe a truce. The radical left's degradation and decay has made long inroads in society. There's never a breather in the battle for right and goodness. And in thinking about this I'm reminded of the most powerful political ad from campaign '08, and perhaps of all time. "Life, faith, and family ... now more than any other time in history ... a new generation must stand for truth ...
Eliot Cohen, who is not kind to Obama (and his strategic blunders in Afghanistan), puts the burden on McChrystal's breach of civilian control, "Why McChrystal Has to Go":
It is intolerable for officers to publicly criticize or mock senior political figures, including the vice president or the ambassador (who is, after all, the president's personal representative to a foreign government). It is intolerable for them to publicly ridicule allies. And quite apart from his own indiscretions, it is the job of a commanding general to set a tone that makes such behavior unacceptable on the part of his subordinates.
RELATED: Some interesting links at Instapundit, here and here.
At CNN: And be sure to read the Rolling Stone piece, for example:
Although McChrystal has been in charge of the war for only a year, in that short time he has managed to piss off almost everyone with a stake in the conflict. Last fall, during the question-and-answer session following a speech he gave in London, McChrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy being advocated by Vice President Joe Biden as "shortsighted," saying it would lead to a state of "Chaos-istan." The remarks earned him a smackdown from the president himself, who summoned the general to a terse private meeting aboard Air Force One. The message to McChrystal seemed clear: Shut the fuck up, and keep a lower profile
Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, McChrystal wonders aloud what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. "I never know what's going to pop out until I'm up there, that's the problem," he says. Then, unable to help themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner.
"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"
"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., recently blamed Bush appointees who “burrowed in” at the Minerals Management Service for the regulatory failures that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But as it turns out, not one of the officials responsible for overseeing the exploded rig was a Bush political appointee.
The Washington Examiner has obtained biographic information on the MMS officials responsible for overseeing BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig at the time it exploded, from the Gulf Region Director to the last inspector to set foot on the rig. Most of these federal employees started with the agency decades ago. Not one was a presidential appointment of George W. Bush, although one longtime MMS employee in question was promoted to his current position during the Bush Administration.
I saw these guys play so many times it's ridiculous. "Amoeba's" essential, one of the most fun-packed punk jams EVAH (stay away from the mosh pit if you know what I'm saying, LOL!!) --- and local to the O.C to boot. Give it up for The Adolescents. Still playing too. They're headlining the Vans Skateboards Warped Tour 2010. Gotta be a blast:
We are the scientists in the lab Looking through a microscope Those little glass slides they never lie How can this small mind cope?
I've never seen anything like it before This amoeba's got a mind of it's own But don't turn your back you stupid science world This is reaching for the telephone
A one celled creature a one celled thing It hardly knows it's alive ...
In a world that's overly focused on body image, Jennifer Love Hewitt is urging young women not to obsess about weight – because it's simply not worth it.
At Father's Day dinner, my wife mentioned that she'd never seen the "stars" on Hollywood Boulevard. I told her that I was just up there in February, when I covered the communist protest against "Obama's wars."
If you're not careful, you'll miss some of the cooler stars on the sidewalk, which are often located where you least expect them. Below, just reading their names was breathtaking. At bottom, the parking attendant took my picture (the ANSWER commie stickers on my shirt are part of my "cover" for my inside reporting). I parked at Hollywood and Vine, across from the Capitol Records building. I think I'll take my family up there one of these weekends. It's much more family friendly than it was in the 1980s, when I used be in Hollywood all the time for punk rock concerts:
They said it couldn't be done. Now they're proving themselves wrong.
For years, auto executives—especially those from Detroit—insisted it wasn't possible to build high-mileage cars at reasonable prices that Americans would want to drive. Thrifty drivers were stuck with weezy econoboxes like the Ford Escort or Chevy Cavalier, designed not to delight drivers but to raise the automakers' fleetwide fuel economy, assuage regulators, and compensate for gas-guzzling SUVs. Early hybrids from Toyota and Honda upped the ante, with mpg in the 40s and 50s, but their high mileage required tradeoffs that produced a mediocre driving experience, at best.
But over the last few years, automakers have kicked their engineering departments into high gear, and they're starting to turn out some truly fun cars that get eye-popping mileage. It's not happening by accident. New gas-mileage requirements passed by both the Bush and Obama administrations are forcing automakers to either downsize their cars or come up with technology that will dramatically boost mileage. The carmakers are doing both. Most of them now build hybrids, which J.D. Power estimates will comprise a sizeable 8.6 percent of the market by 2015. And many automakers will soon be rolling out electric vehicles that can be charged more cheaply from a receptacle at home. But other types of technology are pushing mileage higher for traditional gas-powered engines, with less complexity than a hybrid or electric, lower costs, and practically no driving tradeoffs. Here are some of the vehicles proving that cars can be cool and thrifty at the same time ...
Overwhelmingly, Americans think the nation needs a fundamental overhaul of its energy policies, and most expect alternative forms to replace oil as a major source within 25 years. Yet a majority are unwilling to pay higher gasoline prices to help develop new fuel sources.
Those are among the findings of the latest nationwide New York Times/CBS News poll.
The poll, which examines the public’s reaction to the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, highlights some of the complex political challenges the Obama administration faces. For instance, despite intense news coverage and widespread public concern about the economic and ecological damage from the gulf disaster, most Americans remain far more concerned about jobs and the nation’s overall economy.
And in that regard, President Obama does not fare well: 54 percent of the public say he does not have a clear plan for creating jobs, while only 34 percent say he does, an ominous sign heading into this fall’s midterm elections.
Well, ominous for the Democrats, but RTWT. Americans remain optimistic that the Gulf Coast ecology will quickly recover from the spill, and check the in-depth findings on those in states most directly affected ...
Ambassador Richard Holbrooke got a up close look at the Afghan war today, including gunfire at his aircraft and suicide bombers.
He visited Marja, a key town, to assess whether the new U.S. counter insurgency strategy is working or falling short.
Taliban gunmen tried to shoot down Holbrooke's V22 Osprey as it approached for a landing, triggering a gunbattle with the insurgents that lasted for about 10 minutes. And a trio of suicide bombers detonated themselves during an attack on the U.S. base as Holbrooke was leaving.
Holbrooke, the White House's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, visited Kandahar and Marja today to see for himself what progress looks like here. He was traveling with Karl Eikenberry, the former Army general who is now U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.
Yankee General Manager Brian Cashman is gaga for Gaga -- saying yesterday that the half-dressed singer did nothing wrong when she infiltrated the players' clubhouse after a game over the weekend, causing a stir among team brass.
Instead, Cashman put the blame on his own employees for allowing the outrageous "Poker Face" singer to make her uncomfortable, boozy visit to the clubhouse Friday night after the Yanks' Subway Series loss to the Mets.
"She didn't do anything wrong," Cashman said.
The GM said celebrities are allowed to mingle with players in a designated area adjacent to the locker room -- but only after Yankee victories. They are not usually allowed in the clubhouse, he said.
"She's not banned" from Yankee Stadium and the VIP area, Cashman said.
The player-celeb issue came to a head after Lady Gaga infuriated Yankee brass with her antics in the clubhouse Friday night.
A liquored-up, half-naked Gaga could barely string together coherent sentences as she fawned over several players near the locker room -- causing team co-chairman Hal Steinbrenner to become unglued and ban the singer permanently from the team's clubhouse, according to sources close to the boss.
Gaga's pals and rent-a-cops walked right past Yankee security on their way into the clubhouse.
Gaga was wearing an unbuttoned pinstripe jersey over her bra and bikini bottom -- and nothing else -- as she struck up conversations with some of the Bronx Bombers. She gushed about what a Yankee fan she is, all while groping her breasts during the cringe-inducing visit.
A rep for Gaga did not return a call for comment.
Cashman said the team would step up enforcement of its existing clubhouse rules, which limit VIP access to players to a mingling area adjacent to the locker room.
"There is a time and a place for that, and it's certainly not after a loss and not at the expense of the media doing their job," Cashman said.
At theviddy, Solis argues that "every working in the U.S. has a right to be paid fairly, whether documented or not."
Okay, no worry about illegal workers? Not going after employers who hire illegals? Solis came off way more tough last month on the subject of child labor, maybe the standards are different. Adult illegals: No crackdown. Child illegals: Crackdown:
"With the goal of ending illegal child labor as a top priority, our investigators are using every tool available — from imposing civil money penalties to using the ‘hot goods’ provision — to end these violations. In the coming agricultural seasons, the department plans to increase both outreach to workers and investigations of U.S. farms. After all, those farmers who follow the law deserve a level playing field.
Hmm. Maybe we should just end illegal labor, period.
The most interesting voice in all the fallout surrounding the Gaza flotilla incident is that sanctimonious and meddling voice known as "world opinion." At every turn "world opinion," like a school marm, takes offense and condemns Israel for yet another infraction of the world's moral sensibility. And this voice has achieved an international political legitimacy so that even the silliest condemnation of Israel is an opportunity for self-congratulation.
Rock bands now find moral imprimatur in canceling their summer tour stops in Israel (Elvis Costello, the Pixies, the Gorillaz, the Klaxons). A demonstrator at an anti-Israel rally in New York carries a sign depicting the skull and crossbones drawn over the word "Israel." White House correspondent Helen Thomas, in one of the ugliest incarnations of this voice, calls on Jews to move back to Poland. And of course the United Nations and other international organizations smugly pass one condemnatory resolution after another against Israel while the Obama administration either joins in or demurs with a wink.
This is something new in the world, this almost complete segregation of Israel in the community of nations. And if Helen Thomas's remarks were pathetic and ugly, didn't they also point to the end game of this isolation effort: the nullification of Israel's legitimacy as a nation? There is a chilling familiarity in all this. One of the world's oldest stories is playing out before our eyes: The Jews are being scapegoated again.
‘Jordan is Palestine,’ said Wilders, who heads the third-largest party in Holland. ‘Changing its name to Palestine will end the conflict in the Middle East and provide the Palestinians with an alternate homeland...There has been an independent Palestinian state since 1946, and it is the kingdom of Jordan.’ Wilders also called on the Dutch government to refer to Jordan as Palestine and move its embassy to Jerusalem.
Wilders has spoken the big inconvenient truth. As a result, it is inevitably being dismissed as merely what ‘the right’ regularly says. So of course it's untrue, on the grounds that, by definition, everything ‘the right’ says is untrue. Yadda yadda.
But it is not untrue. It is correct. Anyone familiar with the history knows it is correct. Immediately after World War One ...
Vans Skateboards' Warped Tour 2010kicks off this Friday at the Home Depot Center in Carson. Below is Cassadee Pope of Hey Monday. Hey, get rockin', 'cause this stuff looks hot! (The list of bands is here, and some of punk's greatest from the '70s and '80s --- my generation, LOL!! --- are headlining. Expect video updates.)
Recall that following the "Phoenix Rising" event a few Saturdays back, AZ GOP Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth held a barbeque fundraiser that night. Organizers were asking $25 to attend, and I wasn't too thrilled about it. I didn't know anyone, for one thing (and the crowd wasn't overflowing by any means). But more importantly, I didn't know that much about Hayworth himself. Well, I know something now. See, "Hayworth pitched ‘free money’ seminars in 2007 infomercial." (Via Memeorandum.) And remember, there's no such thing as "free money."
Unemployment has skyrocketed. Billions in bailouts to Wall Street millionaires with little to show for it. The national debt reaching critical mass. Iran close to going nuclear. The Gulf Coast submerged in oil. And the Majority Leader of the Senate moves quickly into action — not with solutions, but by attacking his opponent.
Within hours of Sharron Angle becoming the nominee to face Reid in November, Reid launched a brutal advertising assault that is a slap in the face to all Americans. Not only is Reid not offering solutions to our problems, he’s using special interest money to throw mud and try to tear down his opponent. America deserves better.
If you care more about sound ideas than negative sound bites, if you think it’s time to end the bailouts, end the power of the special interests, and, above all, take back the America we love, then please visit SharronAngle.com and contribute today — and do it before Harry Reid attacks again.
An organized boycott of the goods and services of a rogue nation is an allowable expression of opinion. Had the world decided to boycott the U.S. after our invasion of Iraq, we might well be better off today.
And in related news, "Israeli Easing of Blockade of Gaza Draws Praise of U.S." (Via Memeorandum.) Of course, easing the blockade will make it easier for Hamas to import weapons for jihad against Israel, but that's what this is all about in the long run. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
An Israeli cargo ship arriving in Oakland today was forced to sit idle and not offload its containers when longshoremen joined forces with a coalition of communist and Islamist groups who picketed the port in protest against the recent violent incident off the coast of Gaza.
The ship, owned by Zim Lines, was not carrying any controversial cargo, nor is Zim involved in politics in any way; it was targeted simply because the shipping company is based in Israel.
The planned protest and blockade were organized by The Free Palestine Movement (one of the same groups which organized the Gaza “flotilla” in the first place) as well as a rogues’ gallery of nearly every communist, anti-Israel and radical Islamist group in the Bay Area ...
Additional reporting at the link (via Instapundit, "BUT THERE’S NO ANTI-SEMITISM INVOLVED").
Protest Israel’s Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla!
Boycott Israeli Ships and Goods!
Lift the Blockade NOW – Let Gaza Live!
Bring Down Israel's Apartheid Wall!
Unions, labor federations and other organizations around the world have condemned Israel’s deadly attack against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on May 31. Nine people were killed and dozens seriously injured in the Israeli commando attack in international waters on ships attempting to bring humanitarian cargo to the suffering and blockaded people of Gaza. Six people aboard the ships are still missing and presumed dead.
The Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was a blatant act of piracy on the high seas. No Israeli ship should now be allowed to carry on trading activity any where in the world without facing picket lines, protests and embargo. Dock workers in several countries including South Africa, Norway, Sweden and Malaysia have declared that they will refuse to handle Israeli cargo in the coming weeks.
We call on everyone who stands for justice and against occupation and apartheid to join the June 20 picket at the Port of Oakland. This is a moment of great opportunity. In San Francisco in 1984, a picket line and refusal to unload cargo of a ship carrying South African cargo was a key event in mobilizing the anti-apartheid movement worldwide.
There's been panic on both sides of the aisle, actually. It's an election year. Barton got skittish, others in Congress jumped at the political opportunity, and the media's not giving Americans the full story. For example, see IBD, "An Apology to Be Truly Sorry About":
Rep. Joe Barton says what everyone knows is true and his own party threatens to kick him out of his committee seat. We expected cynical political opportunism from Democrats, but not from Republican leaders.
Where are we as a society when the truth is treated as a something that can't be uttered in public?
Barton, the Texas Republican, apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward, now relieved of his duties, during Thursday's House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing for what he characterized as a "shakedown" by the White House in forcing the company to create a $20 billion victims' compensation fund.
He also declared that he was "ashamed" of the White House's tactics, and called it "a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown."
"I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is — again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown," he said.
Naturally, the Democrats went hard after Barton. And the media were happy to aid the cause. And just as naturally, other comments by Barton have not received as much attention. Without having watched the hearing or read the transcript, how many people know that Barton said:
"There is no question ... that BP made decisions that objective people think compromise safety. There is no question that BP is liable for the damages."
Or that he told Hayward "we want to hold (BP) responsible, do what we can to make the liable parties pay for the damages."
Just as every lawmaker should, Barton simply wants the government to follow our due process system ...
These freaks at NYT should actually talk to people on the ground in AZ:
When Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, announced that the Obama administration would send as many as 1,200 additional National Guard troops to bolster security at the Mexican border, she held up a photograph of Robert Krentz, a mild-mannered rancher who was shot to death this year on his vast property. The authorities suspected that the culprit was linked to smuggling.
“Robert Krentz really is the face behind the violence at the U.S.-Mexico border,” Ms. Giffords said.
It is a connection that those who support stronger enforcement of immigration laws and tighter borders often make: rising crime at the border necessitates tougher enforcement.
But the rate of violent crime at the border, and indeed across Arizona, has been declining, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as has illegal immigration, according to the Border Patrol. While thousands have been killed in Mexico’s drug wars, raising anxiety that the violence will spread to the United States, F.B.I. statistics show that Arizona is relatively safe.
That Mr. Krentz’s death nevertheless churned the emotionally charged immigration debate points to a fundamental truth: perception often trumps reality, sometimes affecting laws and society in the process.
Judith Gans, who studies immigration at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona, said that what social psychologists call self-serving perception bias seemed to be at play. Both sides in the immigration debate accept information that confirms their biases, she said, and discard, ignore or rationalize information that does not. There is no better example than the role of crime in Arizona’s tumultuous immigration debate.
“If an illegal immigrant commits a crime, this confirms our view that illegal immigrants are criminals,” Ms. Gans said. “If an illegal immigrant doesn’t commit a crime, either they just didn’t get caught or it’s a fluke of the situation.”
Ms. Gans noted that sponsors of Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law have made careers of promising to rid the state of illegal immigrants through tough legislation.
“Their repeated characterization of illegal immigrants as criminals — easy to do since they broke immigration laws — makes it easy for people to ignore statistics,” she said.
... these numbers do not support the case that the rural and border areas of Arizona are getting safer. Quite the contrary, actually. Maybe the Times can turn a reporter loose on that.
This is one of those blogs that confirms the central thesis of Melanie Phillips' work, The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power. If you get frustrated with the upside down world of the left, where lies are truth and truth is "hate speech," return to Phillips book to reclaim your moral sense.
Conservative reform is particularly necessary today. Revolutions in telecommunications and transportation continue to transform business, the family and the environment. The threat of transnational terrorists employing biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear and cyber weapons demands greater resourcefulness and agility at all levels of government, as well as greater cooperation among federal, state and municipal officials. And the vast expansion of the federal government undertaken by President Barack Obama and the Democrats has focused the electorate on government's cost and role in a way not seen since Ronald Reagan ran for president.
Unfortunately, over the past decade, conservatism in America has squandered the reputation for reform that it earned in the 1980s and 1990s. President Reagan led the way with his signature tax cuts, which launched two decades of stunning economic growth. Gov. John Engler in Michigan (1991–2003) and Gov. Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin (1987-2001) gained national prominence for the benefits they brought to their states by cutting taxes, promoting school choice and renovating welfare. The 1994 Republican congressional campaign's Contract with America, which drew on President Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address to propose concrete legislation to make the federal government more transparent and accountable, promised a new era of conservative reform.
The promise was not fulfilled. Congressional Republicans grew complacent and in some cases corrupt. While he ran as a reformer in 2000—remember "compassionate conservatism"—President George W. Bush was soon consumed with two wars and never regained his footing after Hurricane Katrina.
On a purely intellectual level, I'm most partial to Berkowitz's conservative program. But I need to qualify that in light of my actual activism on the ground: Berkowitz is a bit too moderate for the tea partiers, and I don't know if he's been on the ground in places like L.A. and Phoenix to experience the extremism of the hard left "progressives" looking to destroy everything. After you been around that shit for a while, it's easy to wind up even more to the right as a reaction to the left's revolutionary program. I wonder what Edmund Burke would say today?
Looking forward to The Other McCain's Rule 5 Sunday, and Kate Beckinsale is putting up some competition to hot Sarah Brandner. And no, I haven't stopped blogging about politics, LOL!
And be sure to visit some of my Rule 5-ing friends:
KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What’s notable about the current “apparent mass departure from rationality”?
MELANIE PHILLIPS: What I have found so striking is that, in this supposed age of reason, there is such an implacable refusal, over a wide and disparate range of issues, to acknowledge the authority of factual evidence over opinion, or distinguish truth from propaganda and lies, or differentiate between justice and injustice, victim and victimizer. More than that, this phenomenon is confined to the supposed custodians of reason, the intelligentsia; and some of the most prominent of these often-militant “rationalists” propound assertions that are demonstrably irrational.
Even more striking is that this repudiation of reason is associated with the most fashionable and progressive causes — anti-imperialism, anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, environmentalism, moral and cultural relativism, multiculturalism, scientism. Yet they promote not just irrationality but a return to primitivism, pre-modern levels of social disorder, and the persecution of dissenters.
LOPEZ: What does a self-described “agnostic” care about God?
PHILLIPS: You don’t have to be a religious believer to understand that if religion — more specifically, the Hebrew Bible and the Christianity that built upon it — underpins Western civilization and the codes of right and wrong — putting others above yourself, freedom and equality, and belief in reason — that form the bedrock of that civilization, then eroding or destroying that religion will erode or destroy those virtues and the civilization they distinguish.
LOPEZ: You write that progressives, Islamists, environmentalists, fascists, militant atheists, and religious fanatics are “united by a common desire to bring about through human agency the perfection of the world.” Is this becoming more apparent?
PHILLIPS: It may seem strange to lump all these ideologies together since they are all so different. But, when you look at them, it is immediately apparent that they are all at root utopian, millenarian visions of the perfection of the world through human agency — the age-old recipe for totalitarian terror. The idea that fascism is in a wholly different place from the Left is in my view quite misplaced: Although conventionally one is described as “right” and the other as “left,” this is historically and philosophically inaccurate; they share common roots in the repudiation of individual reason and liberty.
One of the mysteries of the age is the way “progressives” who fetishize sexual freedom, gay rights, female equality, and the like march shoulder to shoulder with Islamists who stone adulterers, kill gays, and subjugate women. They share a common desire to destroy the cultural traditions and normative values of the West — all in the cause of creating the perfect society, which creates in turn a totalitarian mindset, which links religious fanatics and the political tyrannies of both Communism and fascism.
To some of us, this is very apparent — but many who are in the grip of these delusions are frighteningly incapable of understanding what it is that they don’t understand.
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