Showing posts from October, 2009

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Where Have All Our War Heroes Gone?

Today Barack Hussein Obama is a million times more famous than Jeremy Glick, Todd Beamer or any of the other Flight 93 passengers who rushed the cockpit and prevented the terrorists from using their plane as guide missile. He is more famous than any of the firefighters, NYPD and PAPD police officers, as well as civilians who tried to save lives during the attacks of 9/11. He is of course vastly more famous than any of the soldiers who have died over the last eight years fighting terrorism. In Israel, the preparations are underway for the annual Rabin commemorations. The former Prime Minister is not being remembered for his shelling of a ship full of Jewish refugees and arms being brought in by Nationalist Zionists. He is not being remembered for his Six Day War heroism, which consisted him of having a nervous breakdown and then having a helmet plopped on his head for that famous Jerusalem photo, incidentally a photo that conservative general, Rehavam Ze'evi, who would later be mu

Friday Afternoon Roundup - Enjoy Sharia Law on Broadway

The Obama Administration is finally ready to begin the Big Push. No, not the one to stop the Taliban... but to pass a gargantuan health care nationalization plan that the majority of the American people are opposed to and that no one besides China can actually pay for. While Hillary Clinton is off doing "valuable work" by holding meetings with assorted Pakistanis, Joe Biden is trying not to pass out during interviews, Pelosi and Reid are trying to shove ObamaCare down the American throat like a bad case of strep. On the bright side, if ObamaCare covers as many people as Obama's Stimulus plan did, I imagine it will cover about two dozen people somewhere in Vermont. Back in Americaland though, more health care bills just means another civil war among the Democrats. Naturally the first target was Senator Joe Lieberman who was supposed to have been made an example of for actually trying to be a moderate and resisting the party radicals. Lieberman instead survived and eve

Soft Power is a Fancy Way of Saying Indecisive

When Barack Obama completed his long march on the White House, liberal pundits promised us that he would completely transform US foreign policy from the dark days of the Bush Administration through soft power. Now thanks to all that squelching soft power we have gone from a foreign policy in which few liked us but we could get things done unilaterally... to a foreign policy in which everyone supposedly likes us but are actually less willing to help the new multilateral us, and as a result what we are left with is a foreign policy approach that can't get anything done at all anymore. Anyone observing Obama's months of waffling on Afghanistan and Iran (the waffle clearly being an obvious example of soft power) can't help but conclude that soft power is just a fancy way of saying indecisive. An excuse for endlessly exploring ways to win over others to our point of view, leading to an endless chain of meetings in which nothing actually gets done. Soft power is a committee

The Balance between Power and Freedom

Power and freedom are both quantities that can only co-exist at the individual level. Power at the institutional level is inimical to individual freedom, because power at the institutional level is most commonly represented in the form of control. Some control is of course necessary, it is why government exists as a necessary evil. It is why we must have courts and police officers, armies, inspectors and assorted other functional arms of the system. But that necessary evil is a balance between freedom and authority. And at the point where the necessary evil becomes an unnecessary evil, the balance tilts toward tyranny. What is an unnecessary evil? If a necessary evil is the use governmental authority that fulfills a vital function, an unnecessary evil is governmental authority that fulfills no vital function, or government for the sake of government. This was once the American view of government that treated government with justified suspicion, particularly centralized government.

Voting like Episcopalians

The Conservative Jewish scholar, Martin Himmelfarb once quipped that, " Jews earn like Episcopalians, and vote like Puerto Ricans ". That quip is often quoted but little questioned, because in fact Episcopalians often vote like Puerto Ricans themselves. The Episcopalian Church supports illegal aliens, health care nationalization, the anti-war movement, abortion, card check, gay rights and affirmative action. It has an openly gay Bishop, it is a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and the Church has even spoken out in support of transgender civil rights. It was one of the key backers behind 40 Days for Health Reform. The 75th general convention delivered a resolution condemning the War in Iraq. The All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena took the anti-war position so far it became infamous for delivering an anti-war sermon before the 2004 election, resulting in an IRS investigation. As it turns out, Jews do vote like Episcopalians after all. And the

What George Bush Thought of Mohammed

By George Bush I don't mean the 41st or 43rd Presidents of the United States, but the 19th century clergyman and historian George Bush, who was also the author of the first American biography of Mohammed. Bush was also the great-grand uncle of the 41st President, and the great-great grand uncle of the 43rd President. But his views on Islam were significantly different than those of his more Saudi friendly modern day relations. George Bush was one of the more famous ministers of his day, a biblical scholar, a liberal and controversial thinker. And while his biography of Mohammed was not particularly controversial in its day, you would have trouble finding a single bookstore willing to carry it today. Bush questioned everything about Mohammed's life and history, and phrases such as, " But in the Koran, a complete fabric of imposture, the last thing we are to expect is an honest adherence to the truth ", would summon riots today. Indeed riots nearly occurred when so

Obama Replaces the War on Terror with the War on Critics

For eight years Democrats pounded at the doors of D.C., throwing their own fecal matter around, and claiming that it was only a matter of time until Bush had them all rounded up for being unpatrotic. And like the frenzied mob at a Black Friday sale waiting for the doors to open, shoving and shoving against the glass, until the doors finally open, and the mob bursts through stomping over any store personnel in the way, Democrats have been completely unable to let go of the attack dog politics of the last 8 years and actually govern. Instead what we've gotten is massive incompetence, massive malfeasance and an enemy of the month. When in doubt the motto of the Obama Administration has been, ATTACK SOMEONE. Whether it's Rush Limbaugh, Jim Cramer or Glenn Beck-- the party now in power, but still trapped in the vortex of their own hate, is obsessed with waging a war on all their enemies, both real and imaginary. Forget the E Pluribus Unum on the seal of the United States. The new

Friday Afternoon Roundup - All the Trains Run Through Obama

This week Obama began throwing around his weight more than usual. In the USSR all the trains ran through Moscow in order to centralize control of the country. In the US today, Obama is pushing to make sure that all the trains run through him. First Obama's minions began pushing the rest of the media to denounce and distance themselves from FOX. This of course is only the latest in the Obama Administration's long addiction to public Stalinist purges and denunciations, but this time it was launched against an entire network. And second the Obama Administration now appears to be targeting state Democrats who don't "coordinate" with the White House. The Washington Post spins it as the White House distancing itself from a supposedly losing candidate in the Virginia Governor's race, but the practical upshot of it is that it's a warning shot that blames losing candidates for not relying enough on Obama, sending the message that the failure to "coordin