Isn't this just wonderful?!

What we have here is not a failure to communicate (which is a problem we've discussed before), it is a failure to understand or comprehend, on the parts of certain individuals so-inclined, the clear and undeniable principle that consolidation of government power into a single governing entity (per what we have now with the central controlling agency -- the so-called federal government) results, invariably (that is, no matter what angle you're coming at it from), in the destruction of freedom or liberty, and the entire basis on which this Republic was founded.

I don't need to quote founders such as Jefferson to solidify my point, it is as it is. But it's sad, and deeply demoralizing. Although I do take heart in the fact that such State Reps as Oklahoma's own Charles Key (founder of the modern Tenth Amendment movement), et al, are working tirelessly to secure the rights guaranteed to us in the written Bill of Rights per Tenth Amendment Resolutions and their offspring, nullification laws on such things as "federal health care" and "gun legislation," among others. (I know this because I've had email conversations with these legislators.)

Anyway, to those of you who cling to the idea that the fourteenth amendment is useful to securing (individual) liberty, I simply say to you this -- name for me specific incidences of how it has served to do so over the past century and a half post introduction and ratification. I rest my case. Whatever the "good intentions" of its writers, as was predicted by many at the time, it has served to enslave the general American populace to supreme rule via the central government. The history is what it is, I can't change it, and wouldn't if I could.

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Switching gears

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving this year, and that for those of you who traveled to have Thanksgiving with family, that you're arriving safely back home.

Anyway, I thought it might be a nice change of pace to switch gears a little bit, so I'm recommending that you visit Craig Winn's Yada Yahweh blogtalkradio program when you get the time. Specifically one or more of his shows in the very intriguing "The Great Galatians Debate" series which are accessible at the site.

Let me know what you think, if you should like, in a comment to this entry.

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Federal government bombs Pearl Harbor...

--awakens sleeping giant with a terrible resolve?

How many times have I said over the last few months that Hussein Obama and the Socialist Democrats are moving the ball forward way too fast, way too aggressively on such items as the infamous 'stimulus' package, 'federalizing' health care and etc., resulting in the alarm they've engendered within a significant and growing proportion of the general American populace?

There's a good discussion ongoing at VFR in which commenter Mark P. touches on this exact point.

Mark P. writes:

Basically, the Left is attempting to do too much, too fast, with way too many changes occurring in too short a time, with results experienced too sson to allow memories to fade. They are too impatient, probably due to the short-term thinking of the new cohort of liberals.

Yep. And though Auster's entry concerns itself with health care specifically, and which Mark P. is mainly speaking to, I suspect that like me Mark understands that it goes beyond federalizing health care.

The Democrats are -- under Hussein, Pelosi, Reid -- fast and furiously, and with reckless abandon such as we've never witnessed in this country, trying to ram every God-forsaken leftist-communist item they can while they can down our throats. And they somehow expect Americans (particularly self-governing producers) to simply lay down and take that b.s.?

I personally think they overestimate the extent of the damage liberalism has already done to the American spirit and psyche. Perhaps not on a conscious level, but the world is to them as they perceive it to be anyhow. I'm not saying that liberal dominance hasn't caused a lot of practically irreparable harm to the country, such as creating a large dependent class, fostering an entitlement mentality amongst certain and sundry demographic groups, constitutional and civic illiteracy and a host of others. I'm simply saying that government indoctrination hasn't quite worked out the way they planned it for a bunch of us. Some of us, evidently, and in spite of all of their efforts to train us up in the ways of the all-encompassing ideology of liberalism, were just too stupid (or hard-headed), evidently, to get it.

I've said before that my education just didn't take because I wasn't that interested in it to start with. No one ever expected or otherwise demanded me to achieve academic excellence, so I didn't because I had no reason to. No; I just did what I had to do, nothing more, nothing less. Which is to say that I maintained something like a B- average throughout my educational career because that was all that was required of me. And as you probably already know, it takes very little effort to maintain a B- grade average, so little in fact that one rarely needs to take a book home or "study" in any meaningful sense of the word. Indeed, I missed so many days of school, so many assignments and tests one year in H.S. that about 2/3 of the way through the semester I finally decided to start attending classes on a regular basis and pull my average up from an F to a high C. That is all it took, going to class, completing my assignments, memorizing test answers and such.

Anyway, I don't rightly know how I got off on that tangent, except to say that I think I was trying to lead to a point, which is this -- perhaps liberalism is, unbeknownst to itself and its wild-eyed kooky advocates and promoters, its own worst enemy what with its low expectations and standards. You know, if you begin with low standards for academic achievement, and you create an entire educational apparatus (curriculum, methodology, philosophy and so forth) lining up with those low standards, then maybe it contains its own inherently self-destructive mechanism which is bound to self-initiate at some point along the way. Generations come and they go, and liberalism continues its march forward until it reaches its apex. After which point, what? -- that which goes up must come down, following the laws of physics? I don't know, but it's an interesting thesis that might be worth pursuing further.

Y'all be sure to read the VFR discussion linked above.

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When a low-level grunt goes way too far

(Note: The entry has undergone some revision since first posting.)

Allow me to set the stage for you: On three separate occasions while driving across a bridge near my home, a bridge currently under fairly intensive constructive maintenance, a certain flagman has copped an attitude with me in particular. With me! I mean, if you're a flunkie flagman and you feel the irrepressible urge to cop an attitude with someone while in performance of your duties, I'm definitely not the one to do it with.

These incidents became progressively worse each time, culminating in the events that unfolded below.

The first was fairly innocuous; the flagman did cop a slight attitude with me, but since (I flatter myself) I'm a pretty fair-minded person with experience enough to know that sometimes people just have bad days, or bad moments as it were, I just let it go, acting as though it never happened. As an old friend and mentor used to say to me, "you can never be sure what's going on in an otherwise decent person's life that may be contributing to his acting abnormally or out of character on certain occasions, under certain circumstances or pressures." In other words, I gave the flagman the benefit of the doubt on this first occasion. The second incident was significantly worse, and I responded only by giving him one of those "don't let it happen again" looks as I passed by him. His glaring response on this occasion indicated that he wasn't smart enough to know when he was up.

The third incident was, by far, the worst. Having gotten behind a rock-hauling truck and trailer on my way to work several mornings ago, I was traveling at a very low rate of speed. When the truck stopped in front of the flagman's station, the flagman began waving it forward. At least this was my impression. Seconds later, and with the truck not responding, the flagman began to flail his arms in the air as if to say "go, dammit go!" I wasn't sure whether he was telling me or the trucker to go, so I erred on the side of caution given that the road in question is very narrow under normal circumstances, not to mention while under construction. Anyway, a mere two or three seconds later, the flagman began to flail his arms into the air even more aggressively, apparently cursing in the meantime to add insult to injury, and pointing directly at me. At this point there was no question about who his aggressive posturing was intended for. So, here's what I did in response...

I very calmly pulled up beside this belligerant little (actually he was about a hundred pounds over weight, by my estimation) punk, rolled my window down, and proceeded to give him a stern and forceful piece of my mind, to wit:

"Hey, son!, I strongly advise you to drop the attitude ... NOW!" He replied: "why?" "Because, whether you realize it or not, you're working in the capacity of a public servant, and I'm the damn public, first off," I said. "I was waving at you to go," said he. To which I replied, "I thought you were waving at the truck ahead of me. But that's irrelevant, your display was completely uncalled for and unacceptable." His response?: "What are you going to do about it?"

Now, no more than ten years ago (ask anyone that knows me) I'd have unloaded out of my vehicle and thrown him into the lake -- with extreme prejudice -- without even a second thought at such a display of inappropriate, provoking behavior. But, of course, he's ten years too late, in my particular case, for that manner of dealing with his over-the-top, belligerant attitude. So I replied, as he turned and began walking away, "I'll have a talk with your boss, do you understand me?" He replied over his shoulder, "he's right there," pointing at a vehicle parked on the side of the road behind and to the right of me. I said, "no; you don't understand -- I don't want to talk to a flunkie supervisor on the job site, I'll be talking to the man!" At which point I drove away.

I didn't want to talk to his immediate supervisor because I'm versed enough to know that there's a lot of inter-company loyalty that exists between flunkies like that. So, I simply began calling the main office of his employer. No one answered that day as everyone was out of the office. But they called me back early next morning, and we got it all straightend out over the phone (apparently mine isn't the first incident they've had to deal with involving this particular individual). But I also explained to the caller that I either know or am acquainted with everyone who lives in my neighborhood; that at least three of these individuals, off the top of my head, would worry about the consequences of their literally wiping the pavement up with him, as a response to his same belligerance towards me, after they'd already committed the act. Much like I likely would have done ten or more years ago. That is, assuming I could have caught him (my experience is that overweight does not necessarily mean slow in the running sense). Some of these people can move fairly fast, depending on how threatened they feel. But anyway,...

What's the moral of the story? I don't know. I know that several days later the flagman in question is no longer working at that particular job site. It was never my intention to have him lose his job, nor to have him moved to another location, though I did suggest to his superior that if he couldn't handle the job's public service related requirements, then they might look to finding him another position, more suitable to his ... peculiar talents.

Anyway, another day, another dollar, and another product of liberalism brought low. Such is the burden that falls invariably on the shoulders of those of us who still understand that "tolerance" of certain anti-social behaviorisms can be as destructive, if not more destructive, than any form of intolerance. Both on an individual and a societal level.

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Pastor Manning headed for the Clink?

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Trivia time

Question: What is, stacked vertically, taller than the Empire State Building and the Washington Monument combined, growing exponentially, is pink in color, the demand for which has once already exhausted the nation's pink paper supply, and is the brainchild of World Net Daily editor Joseph Farah?

That's right:

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Should I take back what I said the other day about Social Cons?

Below is posted the content of an email I sent to Lawrence Auster just a few moments ago:

Is someone reading VFR?

Look at the email below from Tim Wildmon of AFA, particularly the first bolded sentence. Keep in mind that AFA and Dr. Dobson's groups (Focus on the Family and its political arm CitizenLink) are closely aligned, and, I think (actually I know, but I can't go dig up evidence of this right now), are in regular communication with one another.

Are we seeing some progress here amongst the Social Cons? I can't agree with the idea conveyed further in the email stating that we must attack abortion funding in the bill as a separate issue from the entire bill itself. In case the bill passes. This is all but conceding defeat. No! We must attack the bill as a whole as a clear violation of the constitution, because that's the only basis on which it can be defeated, with or without abortion funding, with or without healthcare for illegal aliens, with or without so-called 'death panels', with or without healthcare rationing, with or without criminalization for non-compliance. Etc.

But are we seeing some progress?

The AFA Action Alert email is posted in its entirety below.

Stop the Washington takeover of our health care system
Urgent: Contact your senators today!
November 17, 2009

Dear Terry,

The Senate may vote as early as Thursday to move on its version of the government takeover of health care.

At the president's urging, Democrats are expected to use a parliamentary maneuver which will enable them to strip the pro-life Stupak-Pitts amendment from the House bill and push through a bill that will involve the use of your taxpayer dollars and mine to pay for abortions.

It must be clear that we oppose the Democratic health care legislation under consideration with or without protections for unborn human life. The Democrats' plan will increase the cost of health care, require rationing of care to seniors, create 111 new bureaucracies, and increase the already bloated federal deficit by a staggering amount.

But we also must make our voices heard any time and every time human life is at stake. Should a health care bill unfortunately reach the president's desk, we must do everything in our power to see that it does not use taxpayer funds to kill unborn children. Conservative estimates are that taxpayer funding of abortion under the government takeover will increase the number of abortions by one-third.

Take Action

E-mail your senators today and urge them firmly but politely to oppose the Washington takeover of our health care system with or without protections for unborn human life. Please also tell them to keep the Stupak-Pitts pro-life amendment in the health care bill that will keep the government from funding abortion, should the bill pass. (bolded text in original email)

I'm pleased to see that Mr. Wildmon and AFA have taken the position above of opposition to the 'healthcare' bill whether it contains abortion funding or not. Hopefully they can influence Dr. Dobson's groups to do the same. But the bottom line for me is this, if this monstrous government take-over of healthcare in America is successfully passed and signed into law, we are left with very few peaceful means (State level nullification laws, for instance) to prevent the wholesale desruction of life, liberty, and property which we have heretofore declared to be our unalienable individual rights as human beings and as Americans, subject to and protected by a written inviolable constitution.

I ask again in the words of Patrick Henry: Is life so dear; is peace so sweet???

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Sarah and Barack, peas in everyone's pod

What is the single, common(est) denominator between Sarah Palin and Hussein Obama? In a comment to the VFR entry, The Freepers on Laura Wood on Sarah Palin, frequent commenter Clark Coleman explains his recent epiphany of sorts about Sarah Palin,

It suddenly occurred to me when reading this blog entry that Sarah Palin is the conservative version of Barack Obama. Many of us (even Obama himself) noted that Obama was a blank canvas on which his followers could project their political hopes. Why? Not because of his political experience or capabilities or clearly stated policy positions, but because of his personal life story. E.g., Obama is going to be a post-racial unifier. What was there in his past to indicate such a thing? Nothing. In fact, just the opposite. But his followers had hopes, you see. Ditto for numerous other policy areas where people had hopes not based on his statements or past actions.

Sarah Palin is a dyed in the wool conservative who will lead the GOP out of the mushy moderate wilderness. How do we know this? By reading her pronouncements on immigration, feminism, etc.? Obviously not. Rather, it is because of her personal life story. She is a small town girl, one of us flyover-country types, who identifies with us and not the Beltway elite. We can project all our conservative hopes on her. Because of her personal qualities, she is a conservative political blank canvas, ready for us to paint to our liking, just as Obama was for white liberals.

LA replies to Clark Coleman:

I think this is an important, basic insight into the Palin phenomenon..

Further, your analysis also explains the left's overwrought reaction to her. Earlier today I was saying to a friend, "Why do people love her so much, and why do people hate her so much? Neither makes sense." In fact, as your comment makes me realize, the left loathes and fears her for the same illusory reason that the right loves and adores her: both sides imagine her to be some super conservative. Both sides are taking her biography, her symbology, as representing something real about her politics.

The right and the left are having this huge, bloody battle over Sarah Palin in Plato's Cave, fighting over illusory images.

In a short follow-on entry directing readers to comments in the discussion, LA boils it down even further:

Clark Coleman has a good explanation of why so many conservatives believe—without any evidence or record to back up the belief—that Sarah Palin is a great conservative. She is the conservative version of Barack Obama, a blank screen on which people project their hopes. I add that liberals hate her for the same reason that conservatives love her. (emphasis mine)

It's a good point and it ought to be stated with as much simplicity as often as opportunity arises. Liberals hate Sarah Palin for the exact same reason that conservatives love her, and without what?, without any evidence or record to back up the belief about her that they both hold in common.

Not to toot my own horn (I wouldn't do that! ;-)), but I said as much very early on in one of several short exchanges between Auster and I in the Great Palin Debate of 2008:

TM to LA:

Here's the subject line of an email I received yesterday from Dr. Dobson's CitizenLink newsletter:

Dr. Dobson: McCain's choice of Palin: "Outstanding."

Outstanding?

I don't get the immediate display of enthusiasm among "conservatives" for this choice. Not only does she not have a political record to speak of, but nobody really knows anything of substance about her. Is it that they were just so dismayed and disgruntled by their nominee that McCain's choice of a pro-life, pro-gun, anti-homosexual rights (female) running mate far exceeded all their expectations?

It seems like President Bush's phrase "the soft bigotry of low expectations" could be easily customized to fit this situation.

LA replied:

It's not true that she does not have a political record to speak of, and that nobody really knows anything of substance about her. The issue is whether she has the background to be president, not whether she has a political record to speak of.

TM replied:

Okay, she has a political record that consists of her time as governor of Alaska, and as mayor of the city of Wasilla (population: ten thousand).

You're right about what the issue is. And in my opinion she definitely does not have the background to be president. But who does in this race?

By the way, I never did, that I recall anyway, follow up on my statement in the exchange where I said that Bush's phrase could be easily customized to fit this situation, so allow me to do so here. We may call it, if you like, "The false conservatism of high expectations."

As has been said so many times before, modern Americans are so utterly steeped in liberalism that very often they don't know that they're liberals; that their words and actions are almost altogether liberal. Which is probably a good partial explanation for why study after study has shown that most Americans identify themselves as more conservative than liberal. And yet. But then again, I don't put too much stock in the results of most "studies" anyhow. So the point, at least as far as I'm concerned, is probably a moot one. Which begs the question, why'd I raise it in the first place? :-)

End of initial entry.

**********

I should like to add that we now know quite a bit more about Sarah Palin, her politics, her family life and so on, than we did during the initial stages of the Great Sarah Palin Debate conducted between August and September of 2008. Indeed, the debate itself revealed, or helped to reveal, or put in proper perspective, a lot about Sarah Palin that was not formerly known or understood by the average American, conservative and liberal alike. It's one of the things I most appreciate about VFR, and why I read and participate in the discussions there on a daily basis.

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The bow, what does it mean?

Here we have Obama again debasing the presidency, and the United States by extension, with what is apparently going to be standard procedure for this rogue whenever he meets with a foreign Monarch, dictator, whatever. But what does it all mean?

See Auster's article, Obama marks the path for future West/non-West relations here, where several readers, including yours truly, offer their perspectives, and/or theories. Sorry y'all, I'm generally not a big conspiracy theorist, but I just don't trust this dude and those that advise him at all. I think they're all criminals, and accordingly think and act like criminals. Of course they're way better at it than your average, low-level petty criminal scum. But of course this makes them worse and more dangerous than your average criminal scum.

Also, and as a side note, I take serious exception to Daniel H.'s comment stating "I didn't think that he [Obama] could go lower than Bush but he has." I've seen some form of that statement made around the blogosphere numerous times over the last several months, and every time it just gets under my crawl. What did they think Obama was? Why in the name of heaven did they believe that Obama, with the boatload of baggage he carried to the presidency, was going to be somehow better than Bush, who, whatever your differences with his policies, is at least an American born-and-raised? It just kills me when people say stuff like that. I personally had a lot of issues with Bush while he was president, namely his constant reiteration that Islam is a religion of peace, his right-liberalism/neoconservatism, his fiscal policies, NCLB, the Patriot Act, etc., just off the top of my head. I mean, the list is long and distinguished. But to say or imply that you somehow thought that Obama couldn't possibly be any worse is just, well ... ridiculous.

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Social Cons aiding and abetting Congress and the President in destroying America?

Sad to say, but yes, it's true. Evidently unbeknownst to themselves. Indeed, they somehow think they're thwarting the genocidal designs of the federal government by taking issue with the abortion funding in the 'healthcare' bill.

Chiu Chunling's initial comment to the previous entry reminded me of the email notification I received on Nov. 9 from CitizenLink directing subscribers to a 'victory' piece written by CitizenLink editor Kim Trobee. As I indicated in my reply to Chiu's comments, I had intended to do a short write-up about it but it had slipped my mind. Anyway, better late than never I suppose. Here are the last few sentences from the Trobee article:

Now, attention turns to the Senate, where lawmakers soon will consider their version of health-care reform. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said his bill will "look markedly different" from the House offering.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said pro-lifers must continue to contact their lawmakers.

"We will remain vigilant and shift our efforts to the Senate," she said, "to ensure that these same pro-life protections are added to the Senate bill."

Better still, try these sentences on for size:

Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said there were numerous troubling aspects of the bill in addition to the life concerns.

"Many of those fall outside our area of expertise," she said. "That's why Focus on the Family Action remained neutral on passage of the overall bill and focused our efforts on the important abortion funding issue."

Huh?! Educate thyself! Or otherwise get the hell out of the business of attempting to do that which you're ill-equipped and ill-prepared to do in the first place.

This kind of thing is precisely the reason the pro-life lobby is generally looked down on and distrusted by the larger, more well rounded conservative community. And rightfully so in my opinion. They're so obsessed with abortion that they're otherwise rendered ill-equipped and ineffective in protecting the God-given rights of all Americans, including the rights of the unborn. What in heaven's name do they think they're accomplishing with all of this misdirected and ultimately wasted effort? I guess they gotta do something to occupy their time. But is it really necessary for them to engage in counterproductive, counterinuitive behavior as a matter of occupying that time? I suppose so. But I can't see any good reason to just let it go unchallenged.

And "Neutrality"! Someone ought to remove that concept from the American vocabulary. It's about as illegitimate a concept as that associated with the term "amorality." "Neutral," "amoral" -- am I seeing a similarity here? But I digress...

Evidently they can't see that they cannot ultimately win this fight on these grounds. The problem with 'government healthcare' is, well, government healthcare. Not abortion funding, not services provided for illegal aliens, not 'death panels,' etc. Those are all problems, sure, but they're not THE problem. Nor do they combine to form THE problem.

The federal constitution provides no avenue by which the federal Congress may simply effect a hostile take-over of the healthcare industry, such as it is, in America. The only way it can legitimately be done is via the provisions of Article V and a legal transfer of that authority from the states and the People to the central government. Or, to paraphrase General Washington, "by a solemn and authentic act of the whole American People," anything short of which leaves the existing constitution as it always has been, "sacredly obligatory on all." End of story. (BTW, when was it exactly that Washington's Farewell Speech was removed from our political scriptures in America? I must have missed the memo on that.)

But here we have a lobbying group, supposedly "conservative," supposedly "pro-life" which has resigned itself to the idea that the central government is somehow authorized to run roughshod over the constitution at its will and pleasure (not their area of expertise, don't ya know), an idea which defies both its supposed conservatism and its pro-life claims. So instead of attacking the root of the problem as they should if they're going to attack it at all, they go after single provisions in the bill, incidental to THE problem. In this case abortion funding.

The problem here, as we see, is that they're willing to tacitly go along with the blatantly unconstitutional healthcare 'reform' package and the unconstitutional means Congress is using to effect it, so long as the feds make the empty promise, in return for their support (which they claim is a "neutral" position), that no abortion funding will be attached to the bill. That's being "neutral," eh? Could have fooled me. And when (not "if") the feds eventually add abortion funding back into the bill, before or after it becomes "law" -- it matters not -- what will the pro-life lobby do then? Ah, there'll be a bunch of handwringing; a lot of wailing and knashing of teeth issuing forth from these people. That is, until the new wears off or they otherwise tire of it and move on to begging their federal masters not to add additional provisions for the funding of late-term and partial-birth abortions. All the while remaining "neutral" on government-run healthcare, appealing, of course, to their lack of expertise on the subject of the whole enchilada.

Such are the actions of abject slaves, and/or, of would-be totalitarians, not of freemen. And I should like to know how any slave, or group of slaves (granting the pro-life lobby the benefit of the doubt here, only because I don't believe their intentions to be evil), can ever accomplish the goal of protecting the lives and liberties of the relatively strong and healthy among us, to say nothing of the most vulnerable in our society? Ans: They can't. Period.

Is life so dear or peace so sweet? Forbid it Almighty God!

If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

The CitizenLink article is posted in its entirety beneath the fold.

11-9-09

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Pro-Life Amendment to Health-Care Reform Passes in House


by Kim Trobee, editor

Representatives vote to prohibit federal funding of abortion.

An amendment prohibiting government funding of abortion in the House version of health-care reform passed on Saturday by a vote of 240-194.

The Stupak-Pitts amendment was the culmination of an effort by Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats to insert language similar to the Hyde Amendment.

The Hyde Amendment restricts abortion coverage under Medicaid.

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said the coalition of pro-life lawmakers remained determined.

"We felt strongly about it," he said. "We were not going to vote or even let (health care) come to the floor for a vote with language that would fund abortions."

Many Democrats had maintained their plan would not include funding for abortions, but closer inspection revealed it would do just that.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, said Democrat leaders spent months "misrepresenting" the plan.

"The bipartisan House vote is a sharp blow to the White House's pro-abortion smuggling operation," he said. "But, we know that the White House and pro-abortion congressional Democratic leaders will keep trying to enact government funding of abortion and will keep trying to conceal their true intentions, so there is a long battle ahead."

Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said there were numerous troubling aspects of the bill in addition to the life concerns.

"Many of those fall outside our area of expertise," she said. "That's why Focus on the Family Action remained neutral on passage of the overall bill and focused our efforts on the important abortion funding issue."

Now, attention turns to the Senate, where lawmakers soon will consider their version of health-care reform. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said his bill will "look markedly different" from the House offering.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said pro-lifers must continue to contact their lawmakers.

"We will remain vigilant and shift our efforts to the Senate," she said, "to ensure that these same pro-life protections are added to the Senate bill."

One final note: I don't doubt the sincerity or the 'good intentions' of the pro-life lobby in trying to protect the lives of the unborn by lobbying Congress to remove provisions from the 'healthcare bill' aimed at destroying life and the advancement of the 'culture of death.' The same may be said of those who concern themselves exclusively with the provisions granting services to illegal aliens, and so forth and so on. The point is simply that the efforts and resources of these various groups are horribly misused and misguided. Their interests and that of their followers (not to mention that of the unborn) would be a lot better served if they would direct them to the recommendation and advocacy of the passage of State level nullification laws and otherwise ignore the central government and its unconstitutional actions on health care and a variety of other issues. But we seem to be particularly adept at pursuing such misguided, miscalculated adventures in America. It isn't like the pro-lifers are the only ones doing it.

P.S. Is it just me, or does this whole hopelessly ineffective movement seem to be headed up by emotionally driven ... women? Que the attack dogs.

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The Rise and Fall of the CAIR Empire?

Two or three days ago I read a Gates of Vienna article referencing another online article claiming that CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) is currently on a long-running, steep, irreversible decline, both in terms of membership and of donations received. Thus in terms of influence.

My initial, instinctive reaction to both articles was pure skepticism. Skepticism on the level of that I experienced a couple of weeks ago when the MSM was reporting that 'healthcare reform' lacked the support needed to pass it in the HoR. Though nothing could possibly be more satisfying to my mind than to witness the decline and fall of the CAIR empire. And the quicker the better.

Let us review what the basic foundational mission of the CAIR organization is, in CAIR's own words as attached to each and every article posted at its website. And as we read, let us recall the words generally attributed to William James (though I have it on good authority that he wasn't the first to say it) which state, "there is nothing so absurd than if you repeat something often enough people begin to believe it."

Here is the statement, quite literally plucked at random from an article currently posted at the site:

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding. (bolded text added)

Before we move on, I want to re-emphasize the importance of the bolded statements above. Everything else in that statement, with the possible exception of the first sentence (and that's if we strike out the 'civil liberties' part), is just a flat-out bald-faced lie. Which, by the way, Islamists are particularly good and proficient at.

Muslims don't give two hoots about "enhancing understanding of Islam." Indeed, they know that to truly enhance understanding of Islam in Western society is counterproductive, thus destructive to their ultimate goal. Which is precisely why they exploit the freedoms afforded by our system to enhance misunderstanding of Islam(President Bush may well be their greatest success story to date.). But it ain't their fault that we're generally too stupid to understand this. Likewise, they could care less about "encouraging [real] dialogue." The only kind of 'dialogue' they care about 'encouraging' is the kind that conceals the true nature of their religion, passing it off to be "peaceful" and whatnot. Again, they can't be faulted for our collective lack of discernment on this point. Neither do they care anything for the 'protection of civil liberties,' except insofar as their ultimate mission to rule the world in the name of Allah is thereby advanced. After all, what Muslim country is there in existence today, or that has ever existed in the history of the world, which has at any time placed any kind of significance or import on the 'protection of civil liberties?' Take your time.

Anyway, getting back to the bolded text in CAIR's statements, what might be gained by the all-important, self-proclaimed, constantly repeated CAIR mission of empowering 'American Muslims?' Well, of course, and as I've pointed out numerous times before at this place and others, empowering 'American Muslims' means nothing less than disempowering American non-Muslims. It being a simple mathematical fact that the whole is exactly equal to the sum of its parts. If, therefore, 'American Muslims' are currently short on 'empowerment' by CAIR's estimation, then the only way to make up the deficit is to wrench power away from those who currently have it. Which is to say, again, to disempower non-Muslim Americans. The question then must be asked, at what point in the process of empowering 'American Muslims'/disempowering of American non-Muslims will CAIR and others be satisfied that 'American Muslims' are sufficiently empowered/American non-Muslims are sufficiently disempowered? Let us put the question to CAIR communications director Mr. Ibrahim Hooper. Mr. Hooper:

I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1993. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education. [TM: You go girl! Every subversive, hostile organization in America needs a "communications director" just like you!]

Quite so. Well, we can't all be foot soldiers/would-be suicide-killers/assassins, now can we Mr. Hooper? Your job, by Allah, is to "educate" (i.e., promote misunderstanding of Islam) your way into a position to overthrow the U.S. government and our governing institutions and to replace it with Islamic Sharia Law, while the low-level, crazy-eyed, nutjob grunts like Hasan plan and carry out terrorist attacks on non-Muslim Americans as an integral part of the selfsame mission. Suicidal(istic) attacks that you, sir, and every last one of your co-conspirators secretly support, right? Right.

But I digress. The point of this entry is/was originally, and as indicated by the post title, to discuss whether or not CAIR is truly failing in its mission to empower 'American Muslims' via the process of enhancing misunderstanding of Islam, of encouraging self-serving, misleading, taqiyya consistent dialogue, of 'protecting' Muslim 'civil liberties' at the expense of all others, and of building liberty-destroying coalitions with the non-discerning among us, by way of all of these? World Net Daily has an article up this morning in which it discusses CAIR's post-Ft. Hood Massacre-boasting of its Muslim-favorable influence on the American media, otherwise known as the MSM. Yes, including Fox News.

My question is simply this: Is this a desparate attempt by CAIR to re-take some lost ground; to regain control over their ultimate destiny? Could it be that my initial, gut reaction to the story of CAIR's demise as reported at GoV was all wrong? Is it possible that we're seeing a resurgence of the spirit that ultimately prevented Flight 93 from hitting its intended target on that fateful day? One can only hope.

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A spate of new Non-Islam Theories of Islamic Extremism about to be unleashed

Technically this new wave of a well established means of explaining away the Islamic cause of Islamic extremism has already been unleashed. But it will take us some time to quantify and delineate between the various (new) theories in written form. In the meantime, let's review the characteristics common to the existing and documented Non-Islam Theories of Islamic Extremism per Lawrence Auster:

LA writes:

Islam in its concrete particulars is too alien and threatening to liberal Westerners for them to acknowledge its existence as it really is. So they keep putting Islam into this or that Western-centric conceptual box in order to make Islam seem familiar and assimilable. But because these non-Islam theories of Islamic extremism are all false or inadequate, new theories, or new variations on old theories, must keep being invented. The never-ending compulsion of Western intellectuals to explain uniquely Islamic beliefs and institutions in non-Islamic terms expresses the very essence of liberalism, which is to deny the existence of human differences that really matter.

The prerequisites:

(1) Denial by liberal Westerners that Islam is what it is in its concrete particulars. Resulting in,

(2) a propensity amongst leading Western writers and thinkers to place Islam, or a particular instance of Islamic violence or terrorism (such as Hasan's recent jihad on Ft. Hood), inside a sort of walled-in Western-centric conceptual framework in an attempt to explain it in terms other than the unacceptable, disallowed framework of Islam being the cause of Islamic extremism.

(3) But since every single Western-centric theory of Islamic extremism, or any combination thereof has proved, thus far, to be inadequate or utterly false, and since admitting the actual truth about Islam as the source of Islamic extremism would at once destroy the leading and dominant principles of modern liberal society, which itself is unacceptable, therefore,

(4) such individuals engage themselves in a continual and frantic search for, and discovery of, new Western-centric conceptualizations of Islam by which to explain, in acceptable (i.e., liberal) terms, the propensity of its adherents towards acts of violence.

Hence we see with this latest Islamic attack on Ft. Hood -- an attack committed by an individual who doesn't fit the current Western-centric profile formerly established in the preceding Non-Islam explanations for Islamic extremism, i.e., he wasn't poor or marginalized, he wasn't uneducated, etc. -- the introduction of a spate of new Non-Islam Theories of Islamic Extremism unleashed in verbal form. Of which the preceding blog entry contains but one.

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Dr. Phil and Medicine Woman tell us how a guy like Hasan can snap at a moment's notice

(H/T: GoV)

First of all, let me apologize to my readers for hosting such mindless nonsense. But this kind of attitude, this kind of suicidal idiocy, my friends, is what we're up against in modern, liberal, suicidal America.

So, is Medicine Woman, aka Shoshana Johnson, telling us in her own way that she could snap at anytime too since she apparently feels ... deeply? Nice that she declares herself to suffer from PTSD. Not only is she another government welfare case, but she's got herself a crutch to lean all the days of her life.

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Craig Winn discusses Hasan's Jihad on Ft. Hood and the evil that did nothing to prevent it

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Thoughts on the Ft. Hood Massacre

You probably don't want to know what I really think on the subject because I paint all Muslims living in America with the same broad anti-Western, anti-American brush. Every last one of them is a liar and a subversive infiltrator, not in any way to be trusted in my opinion, particularly in the officer ranks in the U.S. military.

CAIR condemned the attack in a press release yesterday, you say? LIARS!!!

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