After #ParisAttacks, Obama to Enlist 'Social Service Providers' to Fight Terrorism

Because at base, it's a law enforcement and social welfare issue --- and that's not a joke!

My god we're doomed.

At the Washington Examiner, "After attacks in France, White House enlists 'social service providers' to fight terrorism":

On Sunday the White House announced that President Obama will convene a "Summit on Countering Violent Extremism" on Feb. 18. By "violent extremism," the White House means the Charlie Hebdo and kosher grocery attacks carried out in Paris last week by Islamic jihadists.

The White House has long made a point of leaving the word "Islamic" out of discussions of Islamic terrorism, choosing instead to refer to it as "violent extremism." For example, an April 2010 New York Times article on White House efforts to reach out to Muslims noted that top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan and others "have made a point of disassociating Islam from terrorism in public comments, using the phrase 'violent extremism' in place of words like 'jihad' and 'Islamic terrorism.'" A May 2010 Times article noted that "Mr. Obama avoids the word 'Islamic' in his discussions of 'violent extremism."

So the upcoming White House summit, spurred by radical Islamist attacks, will be devoted to countering a mysteriously-motivated "violent extremism." The summit will emphasize the soft side of the problem, seeking social scientists and other professionals to address the root causes of what administration officials refer to as a "really negative" ideology.

"Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) efforts rely heavily on well-informed and resilient local communities," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in the announcement Sunday. "Boston, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis-St. Paul have taken the lead in building pilot frameworks integrating a range of social service providers, including education administrators, mental health professionals, and religious leaders, with law enforcement agencies to address violent extremism as part of the broader mandate of community safety and crime prevention. The summit will highlight best practices and emerging efforts from these communities."

Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed the "root causes" orientation of the summit during an interview with CBS Sunday. "The president has announced that on February the 18th, we will host a summit in Washington, DC," Holder said, "so that we can come up with a way in which we can deal with the root causes of this. Countering violent extremism is what we call it, that we can deal with the new causes of what it is that attracts these young men to these really negative ideological groups."

Yes, let's really nail it down to "root causes," which is of course everything but radical Islam.

American Jihad: FBI Arrests Islamic State Suspect in Terror Plot on U.S. Capitol (VIDEO)

No worries though. The "real" threat is from "militant right-wing extremists."

See Pamela Geller, at Atlas Shrugs, "Islamic State jihadi arrested after allegedly plotting to bomb US Capitol":

An alleged sympathizer of the Islamic State terror group was arrested in Ohio on Wednesday after authorities learned that he was plotting a shooting and bombing attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Christopher Lee Cornell, 20, of Green Township, considered members of Congress as “enemies,” and planned to travel to Washington to kill employees and officers working in and around the U.S. Capitol, according to a criminal complaint. Authorities said he had two semi-automatic rifles and about 600 rounds of ammunition, and planned to build and detonate pipe bombs at and near the U.S. Capitol.

A Justice Department official, however, told Fox News that Cornell was “aspirational and not operational,” adding that the public was never in danger.

The investigation relied heavily on the use of a source, who the criminal complaint said began cooperating with authorities last fall to gain favorable treatment for his prosecution on an unrelated case.

The complaint adds that Cornell said he thought he was fulfilling the directives of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, or ISIL.

“I believe that we should just wage jihad under our own orders and plan attacks and everything,” Cornell told the source, according to the papers. “I believe we should meet up and make our own group in alliance with the Islamic State and plan operations ourselves.”

Cornell was charged with the attempted killing of a U.S. government officer and possession of a firearm in furtherance of attempted crime of violence.

French Jews to Consider Immigrating to Israel After #ParisAttacks

As much as I love Claire Berlinski and her bravery, and think the trend among commentators is for the Jews "to get the hell out of France," to quote Paula Stern.

With Israel, Jews have a true home literally dedicated to their people's survival. I think Pamela Geller nailed it with her piece the other day, "The Death of the Jews of France."

The New York Times wrote yesterday on the Jews in France "weighing" an exit to Israel. And now here comes the Los Angeles Times, "Jews worry about their future in France after attack on kosher market":

A pair of soldiers toting submachine guns patrolled Tuesday outside a Jewish school on Rue Pavee in Paris' Marais district, where shoppers and tourists mingled with black-clad, ultra-Orthodox men.

Across the street, the owner of the Pitzman falafel shop eyed customers warily under gray skies and an occasional chilly drizzle in the city's traditional Jewish quarter.

At the school day's end, parents sidestepped the beret-wearing French soldiers in body armor and combat boots to pick up their children in the midst of the bustling neighborhood.

"I don't know if there will be a future for my children here in 10 years," said Joy Bengoussan, a mother of four, holding hands with two daughters, Haya, 4, and Rahal, 3, expressing a sentiment on the minds of many other Jewish people. "This didn't just start now. It has been going on for a while."

Last week's Islamist terrorist attacks included the killing of four people at a kosher market Friday, the latest blow for France's reeling Jewish community, Europe's largest at about 500,000 people. Thousands of Jewish people have left France for Israel or other destinations in recent years, many citing economic reasons and unease related to anti-Semitism.

The attack at the market, which ended with authorities killing the gunman, came two days after a dozen people were slain in an assault by two brothers on the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine targeted for lampooning Islam. The militants were at large until Friday, when they were killed by authorities. A policewoman was also killed in an attack last week.

In response to the violence, the government said 10,000 troops and additional police would be ordered to the streets of Paris to guard "sensitive" sites, including more than 700 Jewish schools. Jewish residents in the city and elsewhere generally welcomed the bolstered security presence.

But many in the Jewish community remained angry about what they see as a lapse in protecting the nation against homegrown militants mostly arising from the alienated immigrant enclaves on the fringes of Paris and elsewhere in France. A demonstration Sunday that featured more than 1 million people marching in a show of unity did little to quell some people's discontent.

"I respect the values of liberty. I am French. But the government needs to do something about this or everything will be lost," said one Jewish student, who, like many others, declined to give his name for privacy reasons. The march against terrorism "was a positive thing," he said.

The market attack victims were laid to rest Tuesday in Jerusalem, where Israeli authorities called on French Jews to return to their "historic home."

Many are taking the advice.

France has become the major country of origin for Jews returning to Israel, and the numbers are on the rise. A record of almost 7,000 immigrants from France arrived in Israel last year, according to the Israeli government, double the previous year. The figure is expected to exceed 10,000 in 2015. Experts say that a perception of growing anti-Semitism in France only partially explains the flight, which is also related to economic, personal and other reasons that may prompt French Jews to emigrate.

Some government officials are alarmed...

Yeah, "alarmed," blah blah.

Still more at the link.

Sky News Cuts Away as Charlie Hebdo Writer Holds Up Muhammad Magazine Cover (VIDEO)

I mean, seriously. Won't somebody over there stand up to genocidal Islam?

Via Hot Air, "Video: Sky News cuts off Charlie Hebdo writer when she tries to display Mohammed cartoon."

My stomach literally sucked in --- like a punch to the gut --- as the cameraman flinches and then the network cuts away to the anchorwoman. The fear --- pure terror in the anchorwoman's eyes --- is so palpable. We're surrounded by cowards. Political correctness will be the death of us.

Funeral in Israel for Jews Slain in #ParisAttacks

At the Weekly Standard, "4 Jews Killed in Paris Attack Buried in Israel."

And video from AFP, "Israel funeral for four Jews killed in France attack."

The Death of Supermodels: Cindy Crawford Bemoans Fashion Magazines Putting Pop Culture Stars on Their Covers

Movie stars and reality show queens. They're the ones making the magazine covers these day, wails Cindy Crawford, now 49 and clearly perturbed. I dare say that the industry has changed, however (take Victoria's Secret's success model, for example). And perhaps she missed out on the key trends.

Whatever. It's a beautiful photo roundup, at London's Daily Mail, "The death of the supermodel: Cindy Crawford complains models no longer become big stars as magazines want celebrities for their covers instead."

Chilling New Video Shows Images from Inside Kosher Market #ParisAttacks

At London's Daily Mail, "EXCLUSIVE: First chilling footage from inside Paris deli shows jihadist killer herding terrified customers and forcing them to deactivate security cameras as corpses lay around them."

And Brianna Keilar reports for CNN:

Leftist Open-Borders Vigilantes Attack Santa-Barbara News-Press for Accurately Identifying Illegal Aliens

Radical open-borders thugs have laid siege to the Santa Barbara News-Press, after the newspaper ran a completely accurate report headlined, "Illegals Line Up for Drivers Licenses."

That's it. But in this age of manufactured "micro-aggression" perpetual outrage, publishing the truth on the front page of the daily news is likely to bring down the the left's fascist thought police, to say nothing of graffiti vandals and violent anarcho-communists. Unfortunately, the French jihadist attack on Charlie Hebdo has given the left a successful template on how to shut down speech and exterminate political enemies.

At NewsBusters, "Santa Barbara Newspaper Building Vandalized for 'Worst Ever' Headline on 'Illegals'."

And see KEYT-TV Santa Barbara, "Protestors Rally Against Santa Barbara News-Press: Paper Defends Use of "Illegals" in Front Page Story on Undocumented Immigrants":

Thursday afternoon, News-Press Director of News Operations Don Katich released this statement:

"It has been the practice for nearly 10 years at the Santa Barbara News-Press to describe people living in this country illegally as “illegals” regardless of their country of origin. This practice is under fire by some immigration groups who believe that this term is demeaning and does not accurately reflect the status of “undocumented immigrants,” one of several terms other media use to describe people in the Unites States illegally.

You have to look no further than the White House website to see the term “illegal” used when describing the 2 million illegal immigrants President Obama has deported since taking office for being in the U.S. illegally.

It is an appropriate term in describing someone as “illegal” if they are in this country illegally.

The colossal mess that describes the U.S. immigration policy is a product of unenforced laws, conflicting legislation, unsecured borders, executive action and political pandering. However the most egregious aspect of the U.S. immigration condition is the appearance of lawlessness that subjects millions of people living in this country illegally as pawns in a never-ending game of political posturing.

The outrage voiced by immigration advocates should be directed at the current immigration system that takes years of bureaucratic red tape to complete. This outrage is shared by those who go through the process legally and stand at the end of the line of those who skirt U.S. law.

Ours is a system of laws, a system so valued that people from around the world – including many from lawless nations – flock here to be a part of it. The United States of America affords those seeking it a lawful immigration process; it also affords the politically persecuted a haven from persecution. With this freedom comes responsibility. As history has shown, some choose to wait out the process, while others choose to come here on their own terms. The latter are illegal in the eyes of this valued system and the Santa Barbara News-Press calls them so.

When breaking the law becomes the norm, America is no better than other lawless nations."

Remember, truth is the new hate speech. And leftists will enforce their ideological prohibitions against truth with violence and destruction.

The Attack on Truth in San Francisco: CBS News Bay Area Libels Pamela Geller's AFDI Ads as 'Hateful'

"This political correctness will be the death of us..." — Judge Jeanine Pirro.

As Pamela Geller has observed many times, "truth is the new hate speech."

And now it's CBS News San Francisco that substantiates Pamela's verities.

See Atlas Shrugs, "CBS News: 'Hitler Appearing In Ads On SF Muni Buses'":

The attack on truth is full-on in San Francisco. Even now, after Jews were taken captive and slaughtered in a kosher supermarket by a devout Muslim, the usual suspects and their goosestepping shills are attacking free speech.

Fight the machine. CONTRIBUTE to our ad campaigns here.

AFDI is running these ads in order to raise awareness about the nature and magnitude of Islamic antisemitism — a grim reality that is nearly universally ignored, and which led to the murders of four Jews in the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Paris several days ago. The massacre in the Paris supermarket shows how accurate, and urgently needed, these ads are.

“Hitler Appearing In Ads On SF Muni Buses”, CBS News, January 12, 2015":

Winning the Culture War

An interesting discussion, at FrontPage Magazine:

Below are the video and transcript to the panel discussion “Winning the Culture War,” which took place at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 20th Anniversary Restoration Weekend. The event was held Nov. 13th-16th at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

Check it out, at the link.

White-Out: Where #Democrats Lost the House

From Ron Brownstein, at National Journal, "In 2009, 76 Democrats represented primarily white working-class congressional districts. Just 15 of them are still in the House today":

Beautiful RT @BlakeSeitz: Zero to 100, real quick. pic.twitter.com/tgetbB22LR

— Kemberlee Kaye (@KemberleeKaye) November 5, 2014

Republicans have surged to their largest majority in the House of Representatives since before the Great Depression by blunting the Democratic advantage in districts being reshaped by growing racial diversity and consolidating a decisive hold over the seats that are not.

Compared with 2009 and 2010, when Democrats last controlled the House, the Republican majority that takes office this week has essentially held its ground in districts where minorities exceed their share of the national population, a Next America analysis has found. Aided by their control of redistricting after the 2010 census, Republicans over the past three elections have simultaneously established an overwhelming 3-1 advantage in districts where whites exceed their national presence, the analysis shows. Those white-leaning districts split between the parties almost equally during the 111th Congress, in 2009-10.

A majority of the GOP gains since then have come from the Democrats' near-total collapse in one set of districts: the largely blue-collar places in which the white share of the population exceeds the national average, and the portion of whites with at least a four-year college degree is less that the national average. While Republicans held a 20-seat lead in the districts that fit that description in the 111th Congress, the party has swelled that advantage to a crushing 125 seats today. That 105-seat expansion of the GOP margin in these districts by itself accounts for about three-quarters of the 136-seat swing from the Democrats' 77-seat majority in 2009 to the 59-seat majority Republicans enjoy in the Congress convening now.

The GOP dominance in these predominantly white working-class districts underscores the structural challenge facing Democrats: While the party has repeatedly captured the White House despite big deficits among the working-class white voters who once anchored its electoral coalition, these results show how difficult it will be to recapture the House without improving on that performance. "The question is: Are we at rock bottom here?" says Tom Bonier, CEO of the Democratic voter targeting firm TargetSmart Communications.

These trends present Republicans with a mirror-image challenge. The vast majority of their House members can thrive without devising an agenda on issues—such as immigration reform—that attract the minority voters whose growing numbers nationally have helped Democrats win the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections. "When you can go out screaming 'amnesty' and not get any pushback in your districts, you are more prone to scream 'amnesty,' " says veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres. "It leads to an attitude of: 'problem, what problem?'"...

Keep reading.

The way things are going it could be a decade before the Democrats are competitive in congressional elections --- that is, they're not likely to retake the majority in the House for quite some time. Thus, even if the GOP can't retain their Senate majority, Republicans will still have a legislative check on the White House should the Democrat Party continue its dominance in presidential elections. And keep in mind, the Democrats are the party of old white people (as seen in their top-tier candidates for the 2016 nomination). If Republicans remain disciplined, and select an excellent candidate for the GOP nomination, look out.

It's going to be fascinating.

Charlie Hebdo's New Issue Flies Off Newsstands

At WSJ, "Satirical Weekly’s First Issue Since Attacks Features Caricature of Prophet Muhammad on Front Cover":

PARIS—French commuters rushed Wednesday morning to newsstands to buy copies of Charlie Hebdo, the first issue of the satirical magazine since eight of its staff members were killed by Islamist gunmen last week.

Even though it has become a cause célèbre, the weekly—known for mocking all forms of authority, including some that have rushed to its defense—stayed true to form by printing a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad holding a “Je suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie,” sign on its cover. Several cartoons inside the issue mocked Islamist fighters.

As early as 6.30 a.m., it was difficult to find copies of the magazine in the few newsstands already open, even though the weekly’s distributors had said they were ready to print as many as 3 million copies—50 times the normal circulation.

David Beghin, who runs one of the stands in Gare de Lyon in eastern Paris, said the 75 copies he received Wednesday—up from eight on a normal week—had vanished 20 minutes after he opened at 6 a.m. “People came to buy copies by the dozen,” he said...

PREVIOUSLY: "Here's Who Is and Isn't Publishing the New Charlie Hebdo Cover Image."

America's Men Describe Their 'Perfect Woman' as Blonde with Blue Eyes

My wife's the one with blonde hair and blue eyes. I'm the one with the graduate degree, heh.

At London's Daily Mail, "It's not just about looks! America's men describe their 'perfect woman' as blonde, with blue eyes - and a graduate degree."

Heart-Wrenching First-Hand Report on the D.C. Metro Fire

Someone dying right before your eyes, you offer help. But sadly it's too late.

At the Washington Post, "Metro rider who helped dying passenger: 'I told her she was going to be okay'":

Jonathan Rogers said he was in the second or third car of a Yellow Line train Monday when it stopped abruptly in a tunnel just outside of the L’Enfant Plaza station. Soon, smoke filled the car and some passengers began having breathing problems. On Tuesday, Rogers, who works at the D.C. Department of Transportation, said he was still recovering from a difficult afternoon and remembering a woman he and his fellow passengers tried to help.

Rogers recalled that after several minutes aboard the smoke-filled train, passengers began having difficulty breathing, including a woman, who was identified Tuesday afternoon as Carol Glover, sitting in one of the seats facing the door. But unlike others who were very vocal about their discomfort, “She was kind of stoic.”

“She was just sitting,” he said. “You wouldn’t have even noticed that anything was wrong. ”

But there was something seriously wrong. Rogers watched through the smoke as the woman slid out of her seat and sank slowly to the floor. Eventually, she got down on all fours, he recalled.

“It wasn’t like she was demanding help,” Rogers said. “She was too short of breath.”

He and other passengers rushed to her side to help...

Keep reading.

Colorado Lesbian Vanessa Collier Died of Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound

The woman died while cleaning her gun.

That very interesting tidbit of information was literally buried at the last line of this report from KUSA 9NEWS Denver, "Protest after church rejects funeral photos of lesbian":

Collier, 33, died when her gun went off while cleaning it. She is survived by her wife and two children.

Literally buried at the last line. This woman was by no means at typical lesbian radical. Gun ownership is a conservative principle, guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Screw the church that kicked them out.

Image Credit: The Heavy.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

#ParisAttacks: Death of the Jews of France

From Pamela Geller, at Breitbart, "THE DEATH OF THE JEWS OF FRANCE":

In the wake of the slaughter of four Jews in a Paris kosher supermarket by an Islamic jihadist, a Parisian Jew said: “In the past year, 7,000 Jews have already left France and after this there will be many thousands more. We are not safe in France any more. There is no future for Jews here in France. We are finished in France.”

Europe loves to memorialize dead Jews, even to the point of fetishizing them – it’s live ones that they cannot tolerate. The idea that French President Francois Hollande did not want Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at a memorial march for Jews who were slaughtered in exactly the same way as Jews were in 2012 in Toulouse —where he said they were murdered because they were Jews, and even more importantly, in the same way as the Germans murdered Jews — speaks volumes. Inviting the head of a terror movement,

Mahmoud Abbas, because Netanyahu was coming, was depraved. With Muslims now accounting for 10% of France’s population, Jew-hatred is at a fever pitch...

RTWT.

WSJ's Not Big on a Romney Run in 2016

The third time's not a charm.

See, "Romney Recycled":

If Mitt Romney is the answer, what is the question? We can think of a few worthy possibilities, though one that doesn’t come immediately to mind is who would be the best Republican presidential nominee in 2016.

Mr. Romney told donors last week he is mulling a third run for the White House, confirming cheering whispers from his coterie of advisers. The question the former Massachusetts Governor will have to answer is why he would be a better candidate than he was in 2012.

The answer is not obvious. The logic offered by his admirers is that voters have a case of remorse about rejecting Mr. Romney in 2012, he can raise money and knows how to run a campaign, and even Ronald Reagan didn’t win until his third try.

The Gipper analogy is a stretch. Reagan’s first effort was belated in 1968, he nearly upset President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976, and when he did finally win the nomination in 1980 he also won the general election. Mr. Romney lost the nomination decisively to John McCain in 2008, and he defeated a historically weak field in 2012 thanks mainly to his ability to raise more money and then pound his competitors with negative ads.

Mr. Romney is a man of admirable personal character, but his political profile is, well, protean. He made the cardinal mistake of pandering to conservatives rather than offering a vision that would attract them. He claimed to be “severely conservative” and embraced “self-deportation” for illegal immigrants, a political killer. But he refused to break from his RomneyCare record in Massachusetts even though it undermined his criticism of ObamaCare. A third campaign would resurrect all of that political baggage—and videotape.

The businessman also failed on his own self-professed terms as a superior manager. His convention was the worst since George H.W. Bush ’s in 1992, focusing more on his biography than a message. This left him open to President Obama ’s barrage against his record at Bain Capital, which Mr. Romney failed to defend because that would have meant playing on Democratic turf, as his strategists liked to put it. The unanswered charges suppressed GOP turnout in key states like Ohio.

Mr. Romney’s campaign team was notable for its mediocrities, led by a strategist whose theory of the race was that voters had already rejected Mr. Obama so the challenger merely needed to seem like a safe alternative. He thus never laid out an economic narrative to counter Mr. Obama’s claim that he had saved the country from a GOP Depression and needed more time for his solutions to work.

And don’t forget the management calamity of Mr. Romney’s voter turnout operation, code-named Orca. Mr. Romney likes to say he reveres “data,” but Mr. Obama’s campaign was years ahead of Mr. Romney’s in using Big Data and social media to boost turnout. The Romney campaign was so clueless on voter mobilization that well into Election Night the candidate still thought he would win. He lost a winnable race 51%-47%, including every closely contested state save North Carolina...

That's pretty hard hitting, and undeniably frank.

And I'm intrigued by another Romney run. But we'll see. It's still early. Lots of things could happen. For example, perhaps Rick Perry can catch fire this time, especially if he's learned the soft-on-immigration lessons from his 2012 disaster. Yep, we'll see.

Keep reading.

Watch: Unedited Video Shows Islamic State 'Child Soldier' Executing Two Suspected Russian Spies (GRAPHIC)

Update on the Religion of Peace.

See Long War Journal, "Islamic State uses a child to execute alleged Russian spies."

And Vice News, "Islamic State Video Purports to Show What Happens to Russian Spies Who Infiltrate Its Ranks."



And watch the unedited clip at the Argentine news outlet Infobae: "Otro horror del Estado Islámico: utilizó a un niño como verdugo de dos prisioneros rusos (Another horror of the Islamic State: used a child as executioner of two Russian prisoners)."

Wild Elephant Crushes Tourist Car in Thailand National Park (VIDEO)

Heh, a mating season rampage.

Radical Islam and Multicultural Suicide

From VDH, at Pajamas, "Multicultural Suicide":

Fueling the Western paralysis in dealing with radical Islam is the late 20th century doctrine of multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism is one of those buzzwords that does not mean what it should. The ancient and generic Western study of many cultures is not multiculturalism. Rather, the trendy term promotes non-Western cultures to a status equal with or superior to Western culture largely to fulfill contemporary political agendas.

On college campuses, multiculturalism not so much manifests itself in the worthy interest in Chinese literature, Persian history, or hieroglyphics, but rather has become more a therapeutic exercise of exaggerating Western sins while ignoring non-Western pathologies to attract those who see themselves in some way as not part of the dominant culture.

It is a deductive ideology that starts with a premise of Western fault and then makes evidence fit the paradigm. It is ironic that only Western culture is self-critical and since antiquity far more interested than other civilizations in empirically investigating the culture of the other.  It is no accident that Europeans and Americans take on their own racism, sexism, and tribalism in a way that is not true of China, Nigeria or Mexico. Parody, satire, and caricature are not Chinese, African, or Arab words.

A multicultural approach to the conquest of Mexico usually does not investigate the tragedy of the collision between 16th-century imperial Spain and the Aztec Empire. More often it renders the conquest as melodrama between a mostly noble indigenous people slaughtered by a mostly toxic European Christian culture, acting true to its imperialistic and colonialist traditions and values.

In other words, there is little attention given to Aztec imperialism, colonialism, slavery, human sacrifice, and cannibalism, but rather a great deal of emphasis on Aztec sophisticated time-reckoning, monumental building skills, and social stratification. To explain the miraculous defeat of the huge Mexican empire by a few rag-tag, greedy conquistadors, discussion would not entail the innate savagery of the Aztecs that drove neighboring indigenous tribes to ally themselves with Cortés. Much less would multiculturalism dare ask why the Aztecs did not deploy an expeditionary force to Barcelona, or outfit their soldiers with metal breastplates, harquebuses, and steel swords, or at least equip their defenders with artillery, crossbows, and mines.

For the multiculturalist, the sins of the non-West are mostly ignored or attributed to Western influence, while those of the West are peculiar to Western civilization. In terms of the challenge of radical Islam, multiculturalism manifests itself in the abstract with the notion that Islamists are simply the fundamentalist counterparts to any other religion. Islamic extremists are no different from Christian extremists, as the isolated examples of David Koresh or the Rev. Jim Jones are cited ad nauseam as the morally and numerically equivalent bookends to thousands of radical Islamic terrorist acts that plague the world each month. We are not to assess other religions by any absolute standard, given that such judgmentalism would inevitably be prejudiced by endemic Western privilege. There is nothing in the Sermon on the Mount that differs much from what is found in the Koran. And on and on and on.

In the concrete, multiculturalism seeks to use language and politics to mask reality. The slaughter at Ford Hood becomes “workplace violence,” not a case of a radical Islamist, Major Nidal Hasan, screaming “Allahu Akbar” as he butchered the innocent. After the Paris violence, the administration envisions a “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism,” apparently in reaction to Buddhists who are filming beheadings, skinheads storming Paris media offices, and lone-wolf anti-abortionists who slaughtered the innocent in Australia, Canada, and France.

The likes of James Clapper and John Brennan assure us of absurdities such as the Muslim Brotherhood being a largely secular organization or jihad as little more than a personal religious journey. Terrorism is reduced to man-caused violence and the effort to combat it is little more than an “overseas contingency operation.” The head of NASA in surreal fashion boasts that one of his primary missions for the hallowed agency is to promote appreciation of Muslim science and accomplishments through outreach to Islam. The president blames an obscure film-maker for causing the deaths of Americans in Benghazi (when in reality, it was a preplanned Al-Qaeda affiliate hit) — and then Obama makes it a two-fer: he can both ignore the politically incorrect task of faulting radical Islam and score politically correct points by chastising a supposedly right-wing bigot for a crime he did not foster.

What is the ultimate political purpose of multiculturalism? It certainly has contemporary utility, in bolstering the spirits of minority groups at home and the aggrieved abroad by stating that their own unhappiness, or failure to achieve what they think they deservedly should have, was due to some deep-seated Western racism, class bias, homophobia, or sexism otherwise not found in their own particular superior cultural pedigree that was unduly smothered by the West.

For the useful idiot, multiculturalism is supposedly aimed at ecumenicalism and hopes to diminish difference by inclusiveness and non-judgmentalism. But mostly it is a narcissistic fit, in which the multiculturalist offers a cheap rationalization of non-Western pathologies, and thereby anoints himself both the moral superior to his own less critical Western peers and, in condescending fashion, the self-appointed advocate of the mostly incapable non-Westerner.

Multiculturalism is contrary to human nature. Supposedly if Muslims understand that Westerners do not associate an epidemic of global terrorism and suicide bombing with Islam, then perhaps Muslims — seeing concession as magnanimity to be reciprocated —  will appreciate such outreach and help to mitigate the violence, all the more so if they also sense that they share with the more radical among them at least some legitimate gripes against the West.

So multiculturalism is the twin of appeasement. Once Americans and Europeans declare all cultures as equal, those hostile to the West should logically desist from their aggression, in gratitude to the good will and introspection of liberal Westerners. Apologizing for the Bush war on terror, promising to close down Guantanamo, deriding the war in Iraq, reminding the world of the president’s Islamic family roots — all that is supposed to persuade the Hasans, Tsarnaevs, and Kouachis in the West that we see no differences between their cultural pedigrees and the Western paradigm they have chosen to emigrate to and at least superficially embrace. Thus the violence should cease.

At its worst, multiculturalism becomes a cheap tool in careerist fashion to both bash the West and simultaneously offer oneself as a necessary intermediary to rectify Western sins, whether as a -studies professor in the university, an activist journalist or politician, or some sort of community or social organizer.

Heh, "Aztec imperialism, colonialism, slavery, human sacrifice, and cannibalism..."

You gotta love VDH. (Which is why the left's gotta hate on him, lol.)

Still more.