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Sunday, July 31, 2011

A Land Without History

By On July 31, 2011
"In a land without history, whoever furbishes the national memory, coins the concepts and interprets the past will win the future."

Michael Sturmer

Tell me who you are and I can tell you how you see the past. That vanishing country falling away behind us. Are we on the way up or the way down? Are we better off than we were four years ago, or forty or four hundred? Is this the best of times or the worst of times? The answer lies inside you. It is defined by your values. For some capacitive touchscreens and infinite channels mean a brighter future. For others, the values of home and family, dignity and country, that were lost matter more than the swipe pass and the digital swoosh.

The furniture of America's national memory has been slowly and stealthily moved out and replaced with new sleek and modern styles. History has been altered, twisted and turned to the purposes of the planners of our brand new future. The battle for the past is also the battle for the future. And he who defines the past, has a lock on determining what the future will be. It is not just the technical debates over laws and spending bills that matter, but the much larger cultural debate over who we are. If we cede that debate, then we give up everything. And the spending bills will pass anyway and the legislative machine will grind on without fail.

Ideology depends on that narrative of progress. America defined it as the progress from duty based central government to rights based self-government. Communism as the journey from feudalism to capitalism to communism. For Islam, it is a march backward to recapture the glory days of the Caliphate. For China it is a technocratic empire without emperors. The journey from the past to the present shows where you are going. It shapes the expected attitudes that people think they are supposed to have.

The Chinese and the Russians do not spend a great deal of time agonizing over Mao or Stalin. Mao was another Emperor and Stalin another Czar. They killed a great deal of people, but that is what emperors and czars have always done. What matters is that they made China and Russia great. Had the Nazis won or at least fought World War II to a stalemate, it is highly probable that the modern German would feel the same way about Hitler. Yes he may have gone too far, but he made Germany great.

That is what control of the historical narrative means. Take the worst monsters who ever lived, and fit them into a historical narrative so that they appear to be part of the pattern, and their deeds become nothing special. And take the greatest heroes and place them so that they appear to cut across the grain of history and they become monsters who subverted the natural course of events for their own greed and power. The deeds of their enemies are laid at their doorstep. Their life stories become myths to be exposed and torn down. This has been done and is being done to us right now.

Take the chief argument against Israel. It isn't human rights, because even its worst critics when backed up against a wall with a fact based test are forced to admit that it has superior human rights to those of neighboring countries. But those countries are part of the grain of history. Israel however cuts against the grain of history. It is colonial, it is imperialistic, it is all those Marxist buzzwords which mean that it should not exist. A Muslim country where the law is a man with an axe is part of the proper narrative of history. But Israel is an abomination, a crime against the inevitable trajectory of history. And all the troubles of the region and the world can be laid at its doorstep... because it is unnatural. Its unnaturalness disturbs the entire world order. And will go on disturbing it until it is destroyed.

But it doesn't end there. America is unnatural too. A colonialist state. And all nation states are unnatural really. Arbitrary borders cutting across cultural lines, impeding migration and communications. History is against them. They must go.

"Our hopes must be placed on the young. We must win the youth if we are to win the future."

Vladimir Lenin


"If we want to win the future... then we also have to win the race to educate our kids."

Barack Obama


"As we strive to achieve our main slogan, "Win the youth, over, win the future", we should also do our best to cut off these sources of strenght and growth from our rivals."

Saddam Hussein




We live on the cusp of a wave that is the present. Ahead of us is the shore of the future. Behind us the ocean of the ever-shifting past. History has its facts, but what we have are perspectives. These perspectives become the stories that inform who we are and what we are about. They give birth to the meaning we assign to age old symbols. They tell us what we should be fighting for. Anyone who can take that away from us, can also destroy us. Or remake us in their own image.

Children are the most vulnerable to it. The communal memories nurture the child, telling him of his place in the continuity of his people's history. That is why all repression begins with the repression of culture and memory. Bans on education, the criminalization of languages, national symbols and non-state schools. A sophisticated totalitarian state replaces their educational system with a centralized one aimed at destroying their specific identity and replacing it with a larger one. Indoctrinating them with the values and attitudes of the state. A less sophisticated one is content to allow them to be ignorant.

To create a land without history, you begin with the children. The adults always have history. It may be bad history, mangled and worn. But it is still there. No, it is the children who can be transformed into the cut off point between one generation and another. Some regimes will forbid the transmission of cultural memories from adults to children, but ours are wiser than that. They simply teach the children to despise adults and dismiss all they have to say as outmoded bigoted foolishness.

A culture that values only youth and mocks age and experience is completely vulnerable. It creates a land without a history. And its rulers can govern a populace no longer able to recognize old mistakes and ancient follies. It has no history. It has no national memory. There are symbols which the rulers interpret any way they please. And then there is no more people. Only the eternal and endless youth, and the euthanasia needle of mercy for anyone who isn't willing to act young anymore.

For the blank youth in a land without history, there is no past except as a scrambled mess of tropes, images and symbols to be combined and recombined in the way that amuses them best. There is only the wide open future. A future that is at once hopeful and hopeless. Ahead revolutions beckon. Each revolution excites them, and then fails, hardening them. They are told over and over again that the future belongs to them. But at some point they are forced to realize that in truth nothing belongs to them. Not the past. Not the present. And most certainly not the future.

"Maybe nothing is really bad, since I am convinced that we will win the future."

Abbie Hoffman

Historical inevitability. The conviction that WE WILL WIN THE FUTURE. It makes the difference between victory and defeat. An advancing army is worth far more than a retreating army of twice its size. The difference is in morale. In expectation. A retreating army expects to be beaten. An advancing army expects to win.

Map that analogy onto countries and ideologies. Consider how conservative political parties act in almost every country. As if they expect to be beaten. They expect it because they lost that sense of historical inevitability. The Goldwater campaign challenged Democratic voting blocs with, "In your heart you know he's right". Today most conservative parties 'know' in their hearts that the left is right. They quibble with their tactics and nitpick the implementation, but they have come to agree on the basic ideas.

In the US and the UK, the Republicans and the Tories are willing to agree to every one of the left's cultural agendas, as long as they're allowed to make some cuts in the budget. In Israel, Netanyahu is doing a fantastic job on the economy, while arguing that he should be allowed to carve up Israel on the installment plan, not in one lump sum. Imagine if after the Battle of Saratoga, the American colonies had agreed to go back under King George III's rule, as long as George Washington was made Finance Minister with the authority to review the books. We won't need to worry about the cultural war or restoring some sense of purpose to the nation, once we've trimmed 11 percent off the expendables budget.

This is the species of absurd madness we are dealing with here-- because even when they win elections, conservative parties act like losers, determined to prove that they aren't the bad guys. That they are tolerant, decent and generous. Good losers in short.

That is how occupying armies who have lost their sense of place and purpose behave. It is how people who live in a land without history act. They will fall for anything, because no matter how many times they invoke God and Country, these seem like pale things to them against the illusion of historical inevitability spun by the cultural dominance of their foes. Even when they win, they act like losers, because they have been convinced that they are doomed to lose. That the currents of history run against them. They will wage the occasional pitched battle and then run away.

There is only one thing that will stop this, and that is reclaiming the cultural narrative. Reclaiming it forcefully and vigorously with no apologies. Making it clear that we are the future. That our current is the tide of history, and they are stranded on the shoals of a lost cause. That is the message that genuinely great conservative leaders have sent. But even they often lacked the confidence of their rhetoric. While we may speak of the current, we all swim in a sea polluted by the propaganda of the other side's worldview and assumptions. The future may be our shore, but first we have to change the current. Our culture is our current. Our history is our tide. Their goal is to completely unmoor the future from the past. Ours is to close the circle once again.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Lynching Herman Cain

By On July 30, 2011
Herman Cain is being lynched for taking a stand. And the people doing it are Republicans and self-proclaimed conservatives. Commentators who complain about the "race card" are eagerly laying down the "bigot card" because Cain did what few candidates are ready to do. He clearly spelled out the problem with Islamic involvement in American public life.

If as some insist, Cain's campaign was brought down by his statements about Islam-- then Republicans have accepted the Dhimmi Principle that the viability of a candidate depends on taking a moderate position on Islam. A moderate position being skeptical, but not particularly confrontational. A position that easily leads back to that old "Handful of Extremists" saw.

All this comes down to is an Islamic vetting of presidential candidates. And everyone attacking Cain over it has given CAIR their victory.

All the little condescending pieces on how Cain was a good candidate until he went a little too far off the reservation deserve a head pat from a black gloved hand. What better victory for the Islamists than to have conservative pundits falsely attribute Cain's campaign problems to his opposition to Islam?

What did Cain say that was so wrong? He questioned how Muslims could reconcile a theocracy with participation in American public life. And he came out on the side of communities fighting back against mosque projects. And that's bigotry. Don't ask why it's bigotry. It is. And if you don't believe me, go ask CNN or the Washington Post.

Playing the bigot card is cheap and easy. It's free. And value free.

The real question we should be asking, is it permissible to question the bona fides of members of an ideology that has murdered millions around the world and thousands in America? Can we actually ask whether a theology that calls for the subjugation of the world disqualifies you from taking an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States?

There are two obligations here and they are incompatible with one another. We cannot look into the soul of another person, but the contradiction between the two must be asked and answered. And if we cannot do that, then we have already given up freedom of speech and thought, and exchanged it for the conformity of political correctness. So we say that after a Muslim kills he may be criticized, but not before the fact. And close our eyes to the origin of the act.

Is there a "Good Islam" and a "Bad Islam". The Islam of decent people and of evil terrorists. But where do we find this "Good Islam"?

Not in Pakistan, Iran or Saudi Arabia. What about Indonesia, with its genocides, Malaysia with its church burnings or Egypt with its persecution of the Copts? Forget Muslim countries then, what about countries with Muslim minorities. Nigeria, Thailand and the Philippines. How many heads would you like to see.

Why must we ask is the Muslim world less pluralistic, less free and more intolerant than the countries where they are demanding the right to impose their theocratic legal system on others. And what exactly will happen when they gain that power?

Can you imagine that America will retain its freedoms under a president who believes that the Koran is the writ of heaven, that non-Muslims are inferior, that women are subhuman and that only laws based on the Koran are just?

Can you imagine that police chiefs who believe that women cause their own rapes will protect rape victims? Why even bother asking, when cabbies who believe that seeing eye dogs drive away angels refuse to carry the blind.

When cartoonists go into hiding and Muslim soldiers open fire on their fellow troops, there is no serious debate to be had over what happens when the Koran and the laws of the United States intersect with one another. And the results are bloody.

If religious and ethnic minorities are persecuted in the Muslim world, and if even religious and ethnic majorities are set on by Muslim minorities in the non-Muslim world, then how hard is to figure out what comes next for America? Do we really need a map or a diagram. Should we go once again to the Ground Zero Mosque to understand how much contempt and how much deception is woven into the campaign to subjugate us. To wipe away our laws and freedoms and replace them with the ravings of a 7th century bandit who murdered and raped his way across the desert, turning a multicultural society into a fanatical wasteland.

It is easier not to deal with these uncomfortable questions. To assent to CNN and the WaPo and all the other outlets of the manufactured consensus. To nod your head and say, "Cain went too far. There may be some bad eggs out of Mecca, but we shouldn't be bigots."

So let's talk about bigotry. Talk to the Copts of Egypt, the Christians of Pakistan and Malaysia, or the Jews of Iran. Learn about bigotry from them and what happens when political power is vested in the hands of members of a cult that preaches the absolute political dominance of their theocracy.

Do you want bigotry? The cemeteries of the world are filled with the victims of the Koran. And their number grows year by year. Go the graves of the murdered and the dead, and mumble to them about bigotry. Tell them that singling out Muslims isn't nice. It's not proper. It's not the American Way-- or that flavor of the American Way cooked up by liberals around 1965.

When Orwell wrote 1984, few Americans imagined being too afraid to speak their minds. Now it's 2011 and we are learning to be afraid. And when someone stands up to speak what we know is the truth, then we shiver and bring out the rope. We lynch him as a sacrifice. The way that Europeans denounce Israel, and prosecute Koran burning. An offering for the Dhimmi altar.

This isn't about Cain, who has backtracked his earlier comments. This is about cowardice. Not physical cowardice, but the cowardice of the mind. The timidity of stepping beyond a reasonably safe opinion and following it to its logical conclusion. Of even raising the subject. And the glee of destroying the man who steps slightly to the right of you. Who dares to say what you do not.

Should we be banning Muslims from public office or keeping mosques out of communities? Certainly we should be able to have that question, without cries of "bigot" coming from people who should know better.

If nothing else, the butcher's bill we have paid in the last decade gives us the right to ask those questions. The dead on our side and the killers on theirs means that we have paid for the right to ask those questions in blood. And we go on paying for it with unrecognized sacrifices and unspoken terror. A conspiracy unmasked there, a bomb plot exposed here. An assault there, a rape here.

But will we ask those questions? The Constitution won for us Freedom of Speech, but what worth is it if isn't used. It won for us Freedom of Religion, but what use is it if we allow that freedom to be taken away from us by a theocracy that does not recognize the existence of such a thing. There is no need to take a red pencil and X out any parts of the Bill of Rights. By allowing them to fall into disuse, by destroying the reputations of anyone who makes use of them, we will have accomplished the same thing.

It is startling to me sometimes to see how much bolder the Europeans are than us. What would the condemners of Cain make of Geert Wilders and Oriana Fallaci, or Brits like Pat Condell. Europe may be under siege, but it still has men and women who rise up and speak the truth. And we who have Freedom of Speech enshrined in the Constitution are prisoners of politically correct timidity.

Maybe your back has to be up against the wall to be able to speak out that way. And maybe we must wait for our own No Go Zones, and our own Islamic Councils. To see firsthand that we are losing the country. Maybe when that day comes it will be the shushers of Cain who will be shushed and the ridiculers of a man who dared to speak the truth who will be humbled . When speaking out in the face of terror is no longer a crime and when challenging theocracy is no longer out of sorts.

I would hope and pray that it doesn't take that. That we need not be schooled to desperation before we are allowed to ask whether we can retain our freedom under the rule of a creed that calls every man a slave.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Friday Afternoon Roundup - Obama Wins the Budget Battle

By On July 29, 2011


THE TAO OF STUPID

 Sheila Jackson-Lee might be the dumbest person in congress. She might even be the dumbest person outside congress. If there were ever a global championship for idiots, the country could send her there. And leave her there; because unlike Lassie, she wouldn’t be able find her way back on her own.

When Enron wanted someone to use as a puppet, they picked Sheila Jackson-Lee. They wanted a woman who didn’t have a mind of her own. Enron executives described her as “agreeable”, which was a polite way of saying, “dumber than a bunch of rocks caught in the hubcaps of a slow bus going the wrong way on a one way street in the middle of a flood.”

That's from my Front Page Magazine article, Sheila Jackson Lee: Racist and Moron. That was the polite title. Unfortunately congressional Republicans aren't exactly outscoring her right now.

The amount of friendly fire by a circular firing squad is what you would expect after losing an election. And the blogs that specialize in shouting, "Fight, Fight" and then standing by and racking up hit counts by pushing more fights aren't exactly helping.

After spending two months kicking around Newt Gingrich, the GOP 2011 has mishandled the budget standoff while learning no lessons from his tenure. Obama's goals were fairly simple and so far he's achieved most of them.

1. Pin the blame for the impasse on Republicans

2. Divide the Republican leadership from the grass roots

3. Force through a "compromise" budget that gives him everything he wants and leaves the other side with nothing of substance that he can't bypass.

The media covered the first part, with the aid of a GOP in communication breakdown mode. The GOP is now deep in circular firing squad mode which covers the second part. And the third is likely still to come.

A budget battle against a media entrenched Oval Office occupant, with only the House, but not the Senate was always a dicey proposition. It would take a strong negotiator with a powerful public presence to hold up the GOP side.

The goal on the Democratic side isn't to pass a budget, but to create a crisis, pin the blame on the GOP, and particularly the Tea Party, wait for the opposition to fracture, and collect the winnings of a frantic compromise budget. And here we are.

Obama's plan was to leave the mess in the House, have the Senate veto anything sent up, and give regular press conferences warning of imminent disaster. And it's worked out fairly well. It's irresponsible and there are Democrats in the know who are disgusted by it. But the same holds true for his entire tenure. It looks increasingly like he was able to bluff the Republican party, then divide and conquer.

This won't destroy the Tea Party or give Obama a second term. But it sets a dangerous precedent in an election year. If the Republican party can be outmaneuvered on this, how good does the election really look?

Boehner is not the problem, but he is "a" problem. He seems to have been chosen for his inoffensive qualities. No one wanted a repeat of Gingrich vs Clinton. Fair enough. But there were better choices. The Republican party has no public face, and while that avoids the danger of being Gingriched, it lets the media put its own face on the party. With no real response.

The GOP does need a public face. A great communicator who's telegenic and articulate, charming and able to be on every news program at the same time. Those aren't impossible requirements. But in a party that puts forward the likes of Boehner, Pawlenty, Paul Ryan and wonders why they won't connect, that is a challenge. More of one than it should be.

The larger problem though is strategic. Going into the budget fight, the only ammunition on the GOP side was an expectation that the Democrats would want to work toward a deal. And that was a mistaken assumption. The Dems had nothing to gain from a deal, and everything to lose.

The Democratic party lost badly in 2010. Obama's polling is equally disastrous. Even if the left wing gang that controls the party now was interested in being good citizens, their only shot is to sabotage the GOP. And that's what they're doing. They're not prepared to take real damage to do it, but they were betting that the Republican party wouldn't either. Because the GOP is rising, and when you're rising, then you have more to lose.

The challenge here wasn't impossible, but it wasn't easy either. And the Republican party blew it. But losing a battle is also valuable. It's a wake up call before losing the war.




MURDER HE WROTE

I've written extensively about an unhinged Norwegian who went on a shooting spree, and I'll write about it some more in the coming week, but I think it's important to note that unlike a Norwegian killing people, Muslim violence remains the norm. Not an aberration.

A Norwegian killing spree is still man bites dog. A Muslim killing spree is dog bites man.

Stop by Religion of Peace or Jihad Watch and look at the latest tolls. Or Fort Hood II, yet another terrorist plot by Muslims in the military, just now.

What is really devastating about Breivik is that despite his video game derived posturing and his grandiose plans to seize power-- he was fairly competent. His journal records multiple setbacks, failed bomb making attempts and a ridiculous trip to Prague to try and buy weapons, but his act of terror succeeded. Those of Muslims tend to fail.

The difference here is First World vs Third World. If even half the Muslim Breiviks successfully pulled off their planned operations, America and Europe would be terror zones. Even 9/11 might have failed a dozen different ways because of the sloppiness of those involved. But they got lucky and 3,000 people died.

But that's the real lesson. The Islamic side only needs to get lucky once to kill a few people or a few thousand. Stack enough terror plots together and they add up to a body count.

While the media is still pursuing their Islamophobia bugaboo, the violence goes on. And it's not Norwegian violence-- it's Muslim violence.

In my defense of Robert Spencer at FPM, I asked a simple question

As Robert Spencer commented, “What exactly is ‘hate speech’ about quoting Qur’an verses and then showing Muslim preachers using those verses to exhort people to commit acts of violence, as well as violent acts committed by Muslims inspired by those verses and others?”

Tellingly, this citation is absent from the New York Times piece and other articles. While Spencer and other researchers have painstakingly shown the connection between incitement to violence and violence — no similar effort has been made by those attacking him.

There's no response, because there can't be a response.

Pointing out that Islam is violent, bigoted and misogynistic is not an act of violence. It is not a call for violence. It is a call for sanity.





WHAT DHIMMI JUSTICE LOOKS LIKE

Let's compare two cases side by side for a moment to understand that the real danger here is not as simple as a subway bombing. It is the implementation of a theocracy which considers non-Muslims to be subhuman.

In England, a 63 year old British man, is being kept on jail for putting pork products outside a mosque.

In Indonesia, the ringleaders of a Muslim mob who lynched three members of a minority sect got three months in jail.

In England, a judge called leaving pork products outside a mosque, "very disturbing offenses". Not because there is anything bad about pork-- but because anything that offends Muslims, whether it is pork, the state of Israel or a cartoon has become a "very disturbing offense".

Meanwhile in Indonesia, a Muslim lynch mob will probably end up serving less time in jail than John White, a 63 year old Englishman, did for littering.

This isn't what's coming. This is already here.

In Jamie Glazov's United in Hate, he draws the connections between the totalitarianism of Islam and that the totalitarianism of the left. The gap between Cap and Trade and Sharia is not great at all. The system to apply Sharia law is already in place. A public ready to consent to the deprivation of their freedoms is also already here.

The left has paved the way for Islam. It has destroyed reason, demolished justice and torn down civil rights. The next logical step after Marx is Mohammed. Destroy the economy and the republic, and replace it with a bigoted medieval theocracy.





THE WORLD THAT DOESN'T MATTER AT ALL

Egypt is descending into Islamism. So is Algeria. Probably the only thing keeping the Islamists from taking Libya is that Cameron has dismantled the RAF and Obama doesn't understand how wars work.

Meanwhile in Turkey, the army is finished, whatever Erdogan recreates out of the ruins will look more like Iran, and be personally loyal to the AKP. Which means that whatever Turkish democracy ever existed is done. And it all happened under the approving eye of the EU.

J.E. Dyer's take

More than 40 military officers are currently being held on charges of being involved in the conspiracy.  It’s hard to pinpoint what the generals’ intentions are with their mass resignation.  They are too old and experienced to believe that they would be currying popular support by perpetrating a dramatic action.  They can’t expect their resignation to put popular pressure on Erdogan, who just won reelection with a healthy majority of the seats in Turkey’s parliament.

The alternative possibilities are that they have simply given up, and decided to spend their golden years doing something else (perhaps outside of Turkey), or that they are organizing to confront Erdogan.

The likeliest possibility is that they are giving up, or rather getting out of the way.

Erdogan has the backing of everyone from the EU and the US to Iran and Saudi Arabia. Not to mention the bigoted and racist Turkish public. He has shown himself to be a strong leader. And he is throwing in enough neo-Ottomanism to sweeten the pot.

The adamant secularism that seemed to mean so much is over. The idea that you can't be a powerful Muslim state has been drowned in gallons of oil money and Western terror appeasement. The process took longer than it did in Egypt, where Islamic mores dominated long before Tahrir Square got around to toppling the last military officers and secularism was a distant memory outside of the circles of the rich. But it's still done.

Ataturk is dead. Turkish Islamists will remember Erdogan as the Islamic Ataturk, who did for Turkish Islamism what Ataturk did for Turkish secularism.

The real threat on the horizon for the Islamists isn't the military, which exists only as a punching bag and a scapegoat for European Turkish experts. It's Kurdish nationalism, which is still the ticking time bomb.

Tensions in Syria and Iraq are feeding Kurdish nationalistic dreams. And while the US and EU continue to look away from Erdogan's racist brutalization of the Kurds, the dismantling of the Turkish military makes a civil war more likely. Not less.

The loss of the upper ranks of the Turkish military and their replacement by Islamist cronies, combined with the growing shift away from the United States, means a weaker and less competent military. A military that's sufficient to murder a few Kurdish teenage girls, but might not fare as well against a full uprising. Or a full scale invasion of Kurdistan.



THE ROUNDUP

What happens to a Lebanese belly dancer who appears on stage with Israelis? Permanent exile.

Breivik's attack already promoting fears of a bigoted backlash among Norwegian Muslims Jews.

What if America had national health care just like the UK? Death panels would delay until patients pay for their own treatment or die.

Ted Belman at Israpundit is fundraising to keep the site going. So is Right Side News which is short of their total.

Zilla is holding Operation United Front in support of counterjihadi writers libeled by terrorism apologists over the Oslo massacres.

Utoya camp hit by terrorist attack... hosted terrorists. Has Norway's left learned a lesson from this about rejecting terrorism? Doubtful. See Debbie Schlussel.

Elder of Ziyon takes down Jeffrey Goldberg on Twitter

What could possibly make auto union members vote Republican? Efficiency standards.

Women are the biggest Islamophobes. Just ask the New York Times.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

A Clash of Histories

By On July 28, 2011
The clash of civilizations is also a clash of histories. The Western view of history is progressive. A march upward from barbarism to greater phases of enlightenment. This view is fairly modern and fairly liberal, yet closely associated with the success of Western civilization. In progressive history, human techniques from the technological to the social can be used to improve life and make the world a better place.

The Islamic view of history is regressive. A lost golden age followed by unbelief and heresy, culminating in a struggle by the believers to restore Islamic dominance. Everything that humans do independently of Islam makes the world a worse place. The perfect touchstone of history was Mohammed. And the only way that history can be set right is by restoring the lost and corrupted caliphates.

Both the progressive and the regressive views of history have their limitations. The progressive views tends to unrealistically overestimate its own progress. It does this by dismissing 99 percent of what came before it as bunk and barbarism, and places itself at the pinnacle of history. Using the Dark Ages as a prop, history is divided between the medieval and the enlightenment, superstition and knowledge.

Overlooked is the knowledge that civilization and barbarism actually come in cycles. And that the ancients were not stupid or ignorant, often they were quite sophisticated. But they were unable to retain, integrate and build on what they had until it formed the core of a stable and self-sustaining civilization. Despite our technological sophistication, we are actually poorer than them in vital areas, and there is every sign that our own civilization will implode the way that theirs did. 

The surest sign of this may be that the intellectual elites of the West have begun to make the switch to a regressive model of history. The environmental movement and the postmodern left have become the champions of a regressive history which demands that we turn back the clock and learn to imitate the slums of the Third World in order to become a better society.

That the people doing this are some of the best and the brightest, the graduates of elite institutions and the thinkers and philosophers of the West, who have followed the dark road of social revolution into oblivion and have come away with no reason for their cultures and nations to go on living-- testifies to the peril that the West finds itself in.

The progressive model of history is on life support. In its pure form, it hardly exists outside of scientific circles, rationalist atheists and patriotic Americans. And the former two often incorporate it into a global admixture that depends on a Wellsian world-state through the United Nations. An organization founded on a progressive worldview, but that in the hands of the left and its Third World allies has become a regressive influence.

That just leaves the regressive model of history with its lost golden age and its distaste for a humanity whose petty faults are in the way of a full restoration.

We are most familiar with the Islamic version of regressive history, whether it is Osama bin Laden or an exhibit on Islamic science. Both depend on a heavily distorted and romanticized history. False history which must remain false in order to justify the pursuit of an impossible goal. A golden age.

Islamic reformers, unlike Western reformers, reform backward. Their goal is to reach back to the past. The Wahhabis with their purge of modern corruptions of Islam exemplify the hypocrisy of regressive history. Their embrace of modern techniques and ideas to force the restoration of a medieval tyranny is sophisticated and self-destructive. They seek to deny change, even while they ride it.

The biggest appeal of regressive history is purity. The romanticisation of the past is a universal impulse. Few Europeans really want to damage the mythology of chivalry with an accurate appraisal of what knights were really like. Every romantic image of the past, from King Arthur to the Vikings, is not improved by close scrutiny. But few Europeans also want to return to a feudal society. That is not the case in Islam.

Imagine what Europe would be like if some 90 percent of the population wanted to restore feudalism, theocracy and the ducking stool for women. There's no need to imagine it. It's called the Muslim world. And a rising percentage of the European population consists of Muslims who are implementing Sharia, Burqas and Jihad in its major cities.

But the Muslim Jihad is not irrational, it's arational. Muslims don't believe in reason as a solution to human problems. They believe in no human solution at all, only the abnegation of humanity to Allah through a clerical guardianship. This is their means of creating a perfect society.

Progressive history accepts human imperfection and builds on it. Regressive history rejects it as a force of evil. Instead it holds up a beacon of a golden past, the promise of absolute purity that rejecting and thereby transcends all human flaws. The daily submission of Muslims arises out a contempt for the individual as a moral actor, and replaces him with the collective Ummah, the receptacle for their transcendence under the guidance of the clerics. The Jihad abandons individual morality for collective bloodshed in the name of creating a perfect society through world domination.

The perfect society is impossible, and the pursuit of it is an excuse for never lifting yourself out of the mud. Its disdain for any society that is less than perfect makes reform seem pointless, and its extremism excuses all lesser crimes and abuses. Having no faith in the present or the future, it has no reason to live but the endless struggle to restore a perfect past. This is the pathology of Islam.

Working societies are built on a hope for the future. Islam has no hope for the future. It may use modern tools, but it never values them, let alone the gifts and sciences that brought them into being. Its gaze is hopelessly dingy, rimmed with disgust for anything that is less than perfect. The tools are inferior copies of what the Koran makes possible. The societies are corrupted and decadent. Even religion isn't right. Islam is striving, but always for the past.

Machiavelli is second nature to Muslims, but only as practice, not as understanding. Deceit is constant and the most overly complex plans are drawn up all the time. Everyone is practiced at manipulating everyone else and accordingly there is no real trust outside the family. And little trust even inside it. And all of this only goes to reinforce the essential Islamic message of human worthlessness. None of it is used to usher in reforms, because Islamic polarity views reforms as black and white. Driving out one group and putting the perfect people into power. Leader worship leads to disappointment, uprisings and a new leader to worship. The cycle repeats itself over and over again.

European expectations of Muslim integration were flawed from the start. Muslims may identify with countries, but their pessimistic worldview was never compatible with Western democracy. They lack the faith in humanity that is essential to the republican experiment. And instead became easy prey for itinerant preachers recording venomous sermons promising them a new bloody golden age, awful in its perfection. 

Rather than identifying with their new countries, Muslim immigrants instead decided to replace them. To remake them into the same Caliphate mirage under the guardianship of quarreling clerics and greedy uniformed thugs. And no amount of visits to mosques and Ramadan dinners thrown by Western leaders will change that. It only accelerates the process.

The Western fallacy is the failure to understand that there is no meeting point with Islam. That its numbers are large enough and its ambitions serious enough that it cannot be ignored, and that its orientation is so fundamentally different that it cannot be reconciled at any cost. Multiculturalism assumes that harmony can come by paying enough attention and respect to every culture. But tolerance and co-existence, the assumptions that lie at the heart of multiculturalism, are alien to the purity that is at the heart of Islam.

Islam's aim is unity. The absolute collectivism of the Ummah standing over the diminishing number of Dhimmis who have not yet been convinced to take the plunge into the Sharia pool. It views a society that is based on division as corrupt and confused. Multiculturalism is alien to its ideological DNA. It cannot accept the equality of those who are different. The very idea of it is blasphemous.

Pre-Mohammedan Arabia was multicultural and tolerant. Today it is a land of Muslim masters and imported non-Muslim slaves, funding the spread of that same social setup and worldview around the world through violent and non-violent means. And this Islamic feudalism is the closest that Muslims ever get to their perfect society. A setup that only works as long as there's enough loot to divide up among all the powerful families.

This Islamic dead end is not where Europe is headed. If a Eurabia ever comes into being, it will not be half as pleasant as that. Europe is filling up with Muslims, but with Muslims who often have little in common with each other, except their mutual hatred of the Jew and the Christian. Any region that they dominate will look like Lebanon or Iraq in Saddam's day. Either a permanent civil war broken by truces and agreements, or a tightly run dictatorship.

Lebanon is the likelier model for Eurabia, the remnants of a European influenced society devolved into countless factions and treacheries. A country where the government is weak and the factions are strong. Where every structure falls apart and every agreement falls apart into infighting. But even that is optimistic. The people of Lebanon have things in common that the people of Eurabia will not. And it will take a thousand years until European history has been as thoroughly eradicated as the pre-Mohammedan history of the peoples of Islam was.

All this is the inevitable outcome of a clash of histories. The progressive against the regressive.

If the West still believed in progress as a moral imperative, it would have no trouble holding the gates. And understanding why the gates need to be help. But the worldview that made that possible is in decline.

The left rejected commercial progress as capitalist, but continued to embrace technological progress and cultural development. Then it rejected technological progress as destructive, culture as perspective and stated that the highest moral principle was for the West to save the world by destroying itself. And under their leadership that is the way it has been ever since.

While the regressive history of Muslims at least embraces their own past, or that of their Arabian conquerors, the left's regressive history is not national, cultural, religion or even specific. Instead it is primitivism itself that it seeks out. The backward and the barbaric, the poor and the lacking, that is their new compass. Having lost all native religion, they are on a free floating quest for spirituality, in opposition to materialism. The content of that spirituality does not concern them, only the rejection of what little Western culture they have does.

And the sizable number of Muslim immigrants and the Islamic world is more than happy to step into this vacuum created by the willing abandonment of Western civilization. To take another shot at restoring their glory days in gory ways.

Behind the clash of civilizations is this clash of histories. The momentum of colliding declines. The barbarism that undoes civilization, but only once the civilization has undone itself.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

A New Deal for America

By On July 26, 2011
The New Deal's bargain was that Americans would trade higher taxes and less economic freedom for a social safety net. That was until the left decided that the social safety net was actually a wealth redistribution platform. The social safety net slid into the welfare state, a program of subsidies for reliable Democratic voters at the expense of the general public.

Now the Social Security Trust Fund has been looted and FDR II is threatening that benefits won't be paid if congress doesn't commit to another extended deficit spending binge. Not on behalf of the social safety net, but the nanny and the welfare state.

The Democratic party loves taking credit for the social safety net, but they have proven to be completely irresponsible trustees, squandering the trust by borrowing against the sum, and then borrowing against the debt to fund an entirely separate agenda. What began as security for workers mutated into a bureaucracy that existed for its own sake expanding benefits and spending to bulk up its power and influence.

The old worker centered universe was turned upside down. Private sector unions gave way to public sector unions. A non-union public was suddenly forced to subsidize the municipal crony unions of Democratic politicians. Corporate health insurance became mandatory. Illegal aliens showed up for the free health insurance. And the taxpayer kept picking up the tab. Now the system is on the brink, and the trustees have no answer except more spending and a few cuts.

The New Deal had always been rotten with wealth redistribution calculations, but it wasn't unfeasible until fiscal responsibility went completely out the window. The Potemkin Village economics had been there in the 1930's, the unconstitutional mandates, the overreaching regulations and the share the wealth platform. But they had at least used a nation with a solid industrial base and birth rate as their base. Both of those have been sinking for decades, even as spending has been growing.

The Harvard plan has been to outgrow our deficits with more college degrees and high tech, but that covers no more than a fraction of the country. We are still up to our ears in it, but while the blueprints may be drawn up at MIT, the manufacturing happens in Shanghai. We have become the designers and the consumers of Chinese industry.

The latest twist is Green Tech and Green Jobs, industries subsidized by the government to make products whose purchase is mandatory. But the right color isn't green, it's red. These centrally planned economic shenanigans have been tried and failed. And there's no possible way for the government to recoup more revenue from subsidized industries with no native demand, than it puts into them.

Immigration with its InstaBenefits package suffers from the same problem. Bringing unskilled workers to a country with high unemployment is like shipping coals to a burning building. But those are the kind of workers that the Democratic political machine and corporations love best. Cheap labor that comes at a high price in social safety net costs. Combine that with a low local birth rate and a high foreign birth rate and the end looms for states like California.

The current debt crisis exists because spending parted ways with revenues. Money was spent because it existed. And more money was always needed. Spending became the chief function of government. Deficits and debt sank what was the left of the economy into a quagmire. And no one is able to part ways with the trillion dollar budgets. They have become a fact of life.

Where does that leave us? In need of a New Deal. Or a New New Deal that will transfer wealth away from the government and back to the people.

The government has proven that it cannot be entrusted with maintaining a social safety net. And instead its functionaries are obsessed with the concentration of wealth and power in their own hands. It's time to take the money out of their hands and put it back into the hands of the people.

A New Deal for America will take on the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of all levels of government. It will restrain the power of legislators to spend, the ability of public sector unions to hold populations hostage and end the welfare state.

The experiment of empowering government to promote the public welfare has failed. Instead it has turned government into a booming business and the chief industry of the nation. The new big business isn't railroads or mining, it's government bureaucracy. And there's always more demand for it on the part of the bureaucrats.

A nation that has been reduced to an industry of bureaucrats cannot sustain itself. When the middle-man in a transaction drives away both the buyer and the seller, whatever business he is in trouble. A New Deal will push back against the bureaucrats consuming the substance of the nation and fight back against the political fat cats whose subsidies have become the new monopoly.

The new monopoly is not Standard Oil, it's Standard Government. We are no longer in danger of being monopolized by plutocrats, but by government kleptocrats who rig the marketplace for their own purposes. As a result the real monopoly now rests in the red hands of the People's Republic of China. The only way to reverse that is by breaking up the monopoly of government on every aspect of life.

The New Deal demands a limited sphere of legitimate authority for government, not the nearly unlimited one it enjoys at the present. That means breaking up its monopoly of power over many areas and restoring a lawful government which follows the lamp of necessity, not the blazing torch of arrogant power that it now ruthlessly grips.

Lowering taxes will force government and its camp followers to share the wealth with those who earn and produce it. Reducing their regulatory powers will prevent them from perpetuating the crony capitalism that has turned lobbying into such a prominent profession.

There is no reason why the hard work of the American people should be funneled back and forth between politicians, allied companies, unions, non-profits and the rest of the gang. No reason why an American should pay a politician, then his union crony and his corporate lobbyist, so the politician can divide his money between the two of them, and the lobbyist's corporation can pay the union and the politician, and the union can pay the politician.

The wealth of a nation is being passed under the table by a political establishment that has become an oligarchy dressed up in social welfare colors. It's time for this corruption to end. It is the people, not the politicians, lobbyists or union thugs who have the right to enjoy the fruits of their labor. No more should millions in public money be traded under the table for tens of thousands in political contributions. A New Deal must be a fair deal, restoring the product of their labor to those who produce it, not those who lobby for it.

It is not enough for government to share its wealth with the squeakiest wheels, it must give it up. All of it. A nation of unemployed does not need an ever growing bureaucracy on their backs. It cannot afford it. And the events in Wisconsin demonstrate the threat that the power of such a constituency poses to the rights and freedoms of the people. The threat it poses to democracy.

The oligarchy has robbed the social safety net it set up, it has indebted the nation, and worst of all its squandered its wealth to feather its nests, enrich its cronies and enthrone its power. This cannot and must not be allowed to go on. A New Deal for America begins with the end of the old deal. The end of a government monopoly and the restoration of the rights of the people over the bureaucracy and the oligarchy that controls it. The New Deal is over. Let a New New Deal begin.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Debunking 6 Myths About Anders Breivik

By On July 25, 2011
1. Anders Behring Breivik was a Fundamentalist Christian

Breivik described himself as not a religious person and mentions praying only once. His plans leading up to the attacks involved multiple visits to prostitutes. In one section of his manifesto he clarifies what he means by Christian.

Q: Do I have to believe in God or Jesus in order to become a Justiciar Knight?

no, you don’t need to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus to fight for our Christian cultural heritage. It is enough that you are a Christian-agnostic or a Christian-atheist (an atheist who wants to preserve at least the basics of the European Christian cultural legacy

Breivik did call himself a Christian, but meant that in a cultural sense, rather than a theological one. He emphasized that he was not seeking a theocracy, but a secular society. His idea of a Christian Europe had nothing to do with religion.



2. Anders Behring Breivik Hated Muslims

Breivik viewed Muslims as the enemy, but only domestically. He emphasized that; "Knights Templar do not intend to persecute devout Muslims"

And he contemplated collaborating with them on terrorist attacks against Europe. "An alliance with the Jihadists might prove beneficial to both parties... We both share one common goal."  The Caliphate was a useful enemy for his cause.


In Breivik's own words, this is how such an arrangement would play out;


"They are asked to provide a biological compound manufactured by Muslim scientists in the Middle East. Hamas and several Jihadi groups have labs and they have the potential to provide such substances. Their problem is finding suitable martyrs who can pass “screenings” in Western Europe. This is where we come in. We will smuggle it in to the EU and distribute it at a target of our choosing. We must give them assurances that we are not to harm any Muslims etc."


Ask yourself is these are the words of a anti-Jihadist who was fighting against Islam. Or a delusional European terrorist who was willing to ally with Jihadist against his fellow Europeans.


Breivik spells out that he is willing to kill Europeans on behalf of just about anyone...

There might come a time when we, the PCCTS, Knights Templar will consider to use or even to work as a proxy for the enemies of our enemies.

Under these circumstances, the PCCTS, Knights Templar will for the future consider working with the enemies of the EU/US hegemony such as Iran (South Korea is unlikely), al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab or the rest of the devout fractions of the Islamic Ummah with the intention for deployment of small nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical weapons in Western European capitals and other high priority locations.

Justiciar Knights and other European Christian martyrs can avoid the scrutiny normally reserved for individuals of Arab descent and we can ensure successful deployment and detonation in the location of our choice.   

This should put to rest any idea that Breivik was on a crusade against Islam. He was a deluded man who imagined himself leading a takeover of Europe, even if he had to serve as a Muslim proxy to do it.




 3. Anders Behring Breivik was Inspired by Counterjihad Bloggers

Except Breivik didn't actually kill Muslims. Instead he claimed to be part of a modern Templar Knights organization that was going to take over Europe. Breivik played role playing video games obsessively. One of his favorites was Dragon Age, one of whose characters is a Templar Knight who hacks his way to power.



Did the game inspire Breivik to become a modern Templar Knight? As much as Catcher in the Rye inspired the murder of John Lennon.

Breivik was manic depressive and using steroids while obsessively acting out power fantasies. He built up a fantasy world that convinced him he could become, "...a hero of Europe... A perfect example which should be copied, applauded and celebrated. The Perfect Knight I have always strived to be."

Trying to apply rational standards to Breivik is futile. Like many killers he was of above average intelligence, but below average sanity. Remove the politics, and Breivik fits the profile of most spree killers. He was angry at society, a loner, suffered from mental problems, abused drugs (in his case steroids) and acted out violent scenarios in violent video games.





4. Anders Behring Breivik was Pro-Israel

Breivik was in favor of allying with Israel, India and other minorities in the Muslim world as part of the struggle against Islam. The idea that he was a Zionist or felt any particular affinity for Israel is baseless. Rather Breivik describes the majority of German Jews as disloyal and suggests that if Hitler had deported them, instead of exterminating them he would have become a hero.

If the NSDAP had been isolationistic instead of imperialistic (expansionist) and just deported the Jews (to a liberated and Muslim free Zion) instead of massacring them, the anti-European hate ideology known as multiculturalism would have never been institutionalized in Western Europe

Breivik does mention that large numbers of Jews would have to be executed as Class A or Class B traitors, but urges targeting by political belief, rather than by race.




5. Anders Behring Breivik was a Moderate

Breivik pretended to be a moderate for tactical reasons. He explored National Socialism and formulated his own plan under another name. In his social networking, he describes, "sharing “moderate” resources from my book on debate groups to coach fellow cultural conservatives". The quotation marks around moderate is in the original.

While most have swallowed the idea that Breivik was a counterjihadist, his actual plan was to exploit tensions over Muslim terrorism, in order to conduct a campaign of terrorism against European targets and seize power with a more stable version of National Socialism.

Breivik was not a Nazi himself, for tactical reasons, because he disagreed with Nazi expansionism. But his own plan called for the use of WMD's in Europe and the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of traitors. The echoes of the Turner Diaries are very obviously present in his manifesto.




6. Anders Behring Breivik was a Political Terrorist

Breivik was not a member of a terrorist group, except in his own fantasies. His plan was to carry out an attack and become the hero of Europe. This is fairly typical lunacy. His plans were grandiose and detached from reality.

His main target was a children's camp, his final notes are frenzied and he mentions having his thinking clouded by steroid withdrawal.

Breivik did have a plan, but it is detached enough from reality that it can hardly be called a serious political program. He did succeed in killing a large number of people, but so have many other lunatics. Nothing that Breivik did was the work of a sound mind.

Comparisons have been made to the Unabomber, but the Columbine killers and numerous others also come to mind. Including Charles Manson. Breivik's program was just as grandiose as Manson's, and just as deluded. Both hoped that a serious of violent acts would touch off a larger war that would enable them to take over.

Breivik is as much a political terrorist as Manson, and can no more be considered part of any larger cause, beyond the malformed chemicals in his own brain.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Anders Behring Breivik and the High Cost of Muslim Immigration

By On July 24, 2011
There is very little to be gained from a study of Anders Behring Breivik. He was a loner who was alienated from the society he lived in, suffered from depression, played violent video games, used steroids, listened to angry music and was of above average intelligence. This profile describes half the spree shooters in the last two decades, right down to the Columbine Massacre.

It is not Breivik's politics that make him significant. He was an outsider who despised society and escaped into romantic fantasies of omnipotence fed by video games and popular culture. Breivik cultivated a detached attitude toward the people around him and was obsessed with violent exercises of his masculinity. All this is common to killers of all political stripes and of no political affiliation whatsoever.

His journal reveals a man who vacillated between crippling depression and grandiose plans. This manic-depressive behavior suggests Breivik may be bipolar. It is unknown if he was taking medication for it. He may have been self-medicating instead and rather than controlling his mood swings, it worsened them. Breivik's journal shows some awareness of his emotional instability, but his later entries are too caught up in his grandiose fantasy world to seek psychiatric help. 

Had Breivik not imagined himself a crusader, then he would have become an animal rights activist, an anti-capitalist terrorist, or just a random spree killer-- acting out scenarios from Modern Warfare 2, his favorite video game, in real life. There is no use in trying to apply some measure of consistency to his beliefs. And his choice of targets likely had a large element of personal grievance or resentment to it that he then dressed up in manifesto form.

Breivik, like so many modern young Western males, was a loner, a disaffected cynic looking for something to believe in. A man in a place without positive images of manhood. No decent path between the hyperviolence of the action hero and the submission of the citizen of the postmodern state. A favorite escape of his was into a fantasy past through role playing games. An identity that he tried to adopt in reality by calling himself a knight.

The combination of steroid use, isolation and violent fantasies made him a ticking social time bomb. But it was the system that lit the fuse and made it possible for him to transform personal dysfunction into a political statement. That convinced an intelligent man that he could exploit a social problem to bring down the authorities. It was Breivik who pulled the trigger, but it was the Norwegian authorities who created and then ignored the social problem of Islamic immigration, that enabled him to exploit it in a burst of horrifying violence.

The Oslo killings are a tragic reminder that conflicts rarely remain one sided. And it is foolish to expect them to. Violence begets violence and extremism creates extremists. Terrorism gives birth to more of the same. Throughout history this has often been the case. One atrocity being met with another until the whole bloody heap becomes indistinguishable and everyone is covered in blood. Such awful events are the mountain of which the history of nations is made of. Whether it is Europe, Africa or the Middle East-- this is the nature of our shared history. Once the lamp is opened and the genie of violence is unleashed, wishing will not put it back.

As human beings we crave a simpler narrative. That of victims and perpetrators. Good and evil. But the more complex dynamic of human affairs makes such simplistic stories difficult to sustain. There are of course victims and perpetrators, but there is often guilt and innocence on both sides. There were after all good Nazis and bad partisans, good Viet Cong and bad Americans. Such aberrations from the norm are difficult to sustain, but they exist. It is hard to be a good person in a bad cause or a bad person in a good cause, but it is certainly not impossible. And not so uncommon that they need to be classified with the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot.

The Mai Lai massacre did not mean that Americans were no better than the Viet Cong. And the rape of German women by French soldiers did not mean that the Free French were no better than the Nazis. Such views too are unforgivably simplistic, and use individual incidents of unequal stature and accountability to mask the far larger moral gap between the two sides.

Oslo has become symbolic of pacifist idealism, which is why the bloodshed is so stunning, but also inevitable. Any ideal pursued to a far enough extreme gives birth to its opposite number. Violence attracts idealism and idealism attracts violence. Both pacifism and violence represent unbalanced extremes. And extremes often have a way of coming together in an explosive collision of opposites.

The search for blame in all the usual places is inevitable, but counterproductive. The Oslo killings are another item on the ledger of the high cost of Islam. The explosive rage on both sides fueled by a social instability created by aggressive immigration with no thought to its impact on the country as a whole. It was Brevik who spent nine years planning and carrying out the attacks, but it was the political authorities who had created a scenario that made it possible.

There are of course shootings carried out all the time with no larger political justification, and it is possible that Brevik would have acted regardless of any of the events of the past nine years. But it is far more likely that by giving him an antagonist to fight, the authorities brought those violent events into being.

Violence driven by social instability must be at least partly laid at the feet of those who caused the social instability. And that is not a handful of American critics of Islam, but the Norwegian authorities whose social and immigration policies created an explosive situation that had already exploded into violence before.

We cannot regard Brevik as an isolated phenomenon or as the creature of a handful of foreign pundits. He was a Norwegian whose views and attitudes echoed those of many of his countrymen. His violent response to social problems created by the authorities and aimed at the authorities should be deplored. But at the same time we must learn the lessons of not the act itself, but of the social instability that gave rise to it. It is the best chance of avoiding a repetition of it by those who would, like Brevik, exploit social instability as a means of promoting a violent solution.

Muslim violence, whether it is planes being flown into skyscrapers or women being raped with religious sanction, are likely to inspire answering acts of violence. Such acts should be condemned, yet so should the apathy toward the social instability created by Muslim immigration that gives rise to them.

When a woman is raped on the steps of the Norwegian parliament, it should be every bit as shocking as Brevik's massacres, not because their damage is equal, but because they are both wake up calls to a major social problem that cannot be swept under the rug.

Muslim immigration and its attendant violence gave Brevik his casus belli to take action against the authorities. It may inspire future Breviks as well. It is easy to blame the pattern of ideas that Brevik cited in his manifesto, but the manifesto and the ideas are the children of an existing social problem. A problem so severe that a woman can be raped on the steps of the Norwegian parliament with no one moving to intervene.

The European media will use the Oslo killings to argue against the regional trend of examining Muslim immigration. But they have it exactly backward. A social problem cannot be solved by refusing to examine it or by silencing all discussion of it. Social problems breed and worsen in silence. As do all things in the dark. Brevik's shootings should rather be a wake up call to seriously examine the impact of Muslim immigration on Oslo in particular, and Norway in general.

Brevik was not a Muslim, yet he was motivated by Islam, as surely as the most devout Jihadist. Islam defined his actions, as surely as it does theirs. The only difference is that they were acting for Islam, while he was acting against it. But the problem of both Brevik and the Jihadist emerges from a common source. Islam.

Violence rarely remains one sided. In Norway, Brevik has added a second side to a triangle, whose third side is politically correct apathy and nervous pacifism. That second side is as bloody as the first, and no more removable without addressing the first side and the third.

Whether it is the Madrid bombings or the Oslo rampage-- all these horrors are a reminder that Europe's current policies have failed. That integration has not worked and multiculturalism has given rise to hostile cultures living side by side. Brevik's actions and growing tension on the far right remind us that apathy and mouthing multicultural slogans can no longer substitute for a serious examination of the problem.

This latest horror warns us that violence will be exploited by the violent, and that the European equation is now in danger of having a third variable. We have had the Jihadists and the apathetic authorities, now there are the Breviks. Dangerous men looking for a cause and a reason to fight. And the social instability and violence created by Islamic immigration gives them a reason.

Talk of suppressing extremism will not prevent the Breviks, it will only encourage them by giving them a more definite enemy to fight. Anti-government violence in Norway and Sweden, countries which have repressed free speech the hardest, is no coincidence. Authoritarianism only feeds anti-government tendencies. It is impossible for Europe to rid itself of the Breviks, without also ridding itself of the social problems that make them possible.

The best way to stop the Breviks of the future, is to steal their thunder. To seriously examine the high cost of Islamic immigration, the failures of integration, the violence taking place under the shadow of multiculturalism-- and to honestly and seriously address these things.

Brevik would not have acted if he did not believe that the authorities would play into his hands. If the Norwegian government really wishes to defeat the ideas he championed, it must pull their claws, by addressing them as social problems, rather than by denying them and repressing their critics. Europe's history of domestic radicalism should provide ample reasons to show why such an approach is unwise and counterproductive.

As long as a social problem remains neglected and a source of social instability proliferates, then the violent tendencies of dangerous loners will be channeled into its path. That is how World War I began. It may be how World War III will begins. The duty of responsible authorities is to address the social problem, not with slogans, but with concrete and realistic measures. If a social problem is a swamp, then it must be drained. Oslo's social problem is Islamic immigration. The fever swamp of violence cannot be drained, until the immigration that feeds it is drained as well.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Healing Norway

By On July 23, 2011
The tragic events in Norway should be a wake up call to the authorities, not to the dangers of so-called "Right-Wing Extremism", but to the very real dangers of marginalizing a political opposition and a point of view to the extent that they have nowhere to go but underground.

The response to the attacks by the Norwegian press and the incitement against the right of center dooms the repetition of this same cycle of violence in which views are driven underground, where they simmer into real extremism and then explode. The easy and simple way to diffuse this cycle of violence is to reach out and create safe spaces for freedom of speech even for the most disagreeable views.

European liberals often boast of keeping a tighter lid on extremism than America, with tighter curbs on free speech, but the current tragedy is yet another reminder that this lid is counterproductive. Suppressing a legitimate opposition only leads to the rise of an illegitimate opposition. Shutting down ideas you don't like brings back those same ideas, only heavily armed.

Democracy only works as a stabilizer when it is actually democratic. But the European left often uses the word to distinguish legitimate views from illegitimate ones. This is a misuse and perversion of what a democratic society is. It is not a place where only your views are freely represented, but where all views are represented.

An open society is a safety valve. It keeps people from turning to violence because they have peaceful alternatives. However once views begin to be treated as beyond the pale and once there is an organized campaign of hatred and incitement being directed against a point of view by the authorities and the press, then an unfortunate violent reaction becomes more likely.

Here one may encounter Communist and Nazi protests side by side, yet America has a lower share of political violence and political extremism in government than Europe does. It is because we don't lock up ideas or people who have them, that we do have a free country. A freedom that is not based on constant investigations of extremism, but on a system where even the most repugnant views get their hearing.

The outbursts of political violence in Norway and Sweden-- countries which have become notorious for suppressing right of center free speech should be a sign that change is necessary. The authorities may be tempted to once again reach for the club, but they might consider trying the bullhorn of free speech instead. Police powers are tempting when you have them at your disposal, but when it comes to dealing with political dissent, they only exacerbate the problem. And if the opposition ever comes to power, it leaves the club in their hands.

The American, European and Israeli left all tend to respond to political violence with verbal violence, campaigns of hate and incitement that blanket everyone to the right of them as violent extremists. And there is no surer way to create a self-fulfilling prophecy than to broadcast over and over again the message that anyone who disagrees with you is liable to turn to violence. Especially when such a hate campaign is aimed at silencing that opposition.

Campaigns targeting a political point of view as illegitimate create a cycle of violence, as suppression campaigns drive views underground leading to acts of violence, leading to further suppression campaigns and to further acts of violence. The only way to break the cycle of violence is to recognize that while you may disagree with an idea, the best way to prevent it from fueling political violence is to protect the peaceful right of expression for those ideas.

The very act of suppressing ideas is extremist. And it leads to oppositional extremism. This familiar set of tensions between the authorities and a suppressed opposition inevitably explodes into violence. And for the authorities to defuse political violence aimed at them, they must first defuse the suppression of political speech.

If the Norwegian authorities really wish to work for a safer society, they will reach out to create an environment where political activism and speech is protected. But unfortunately all signs are that they remain committed to the same disastrous state of affairs. And the tragedy that occurred can be laid at the feet of this obstinate clinging to the tools of power, while avoiding the means of engagement.

The left's own political extremism creates its own reaction. And cracking down on that reaction only makes it more extreme. It may be tempting for the left to think that it can use police powers and incitement to suppress that reaction, but after this last attack, it may want to think about following another path. If it truly wishes to convince Norwegians that violence is not the answer, the best way to show it is by turning away from violence, and toward democracy. 

Political violence emerges from tensions created by making political engagement a high stakes game. Lowering the stakes and the barriers to political engagement has been shown over and over again to also lower the level of violence.

The answer to political violence cannot be more violence or incitement, it must be engagement. And it is ironic that in Oslo, a city where international engagement has been developed into a fine art, the authorities treat engagement with the right as a foreign notion. But what goes for the world, goes for Norway also.

The reams of ignorant commentary that scapegoat entire political movements for the actions of one man are not only dangerous, they are a more insidious form of political extremism that no free society can afford. They send a message that criminalizes ideas, rather than actions, and by criminalizing ideas, they create a slippery slope into violence.

The best memorial for a tragedy is to understand why it happened and how to prevent it in the future. Domestic political unrest arises not from external factors, as is the case with Islamic terrorism, but from internal ones. Healing a country begins with healing its fractures. And the only way to begin the healing is to open a dialogue on freedom of speech.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Friday Afternoon Roundup - Every Man a Trillionaire

By On July 22, 2011


BASH BLACK REPUBLICANS WEEK

It's summer in the city. The sidewalks are melting, the ice cream is dripping and the liberal assault on Black Republicans is being ladled on thick and heavy.

Whether it's Congressman West being lambasted for telling off Debbie Downer or Herman Cain under fire for asking some real questions about Islam-- this seems like the Bash Black Republicans Week to end them all.

Why go after black Republicans?

The prospect of having their spending limit go down and their race cards invalidated frightens Democrats more than anything else, by the rise of a responsible African-American leadership. That is the one thing that could take away their power.

The desperate fury felt by Black, female and Jewish Republicans, like West, Bachmann and Cantor is a symptom of weakness by a corrupt establishment that knows how precarious its position is.

The secret of the Democratic party is that its electoral base is weak. Its grip on the White House has never been steady and its 2006 victory in congress was rolled back in only four years. It has lost the white male vote and depends on niche electorates. If those electorates were to turn their backs on its policies, then the Democratic party as we know it would be over.

in a year when black unemployment is at a record high, and a black man in the White House has absolutely failed to help the black community– the danger of that community waking up and realizing that they have been played for half a century is very real.

That's my conclusion on the assaults on Allen West, Tim Scott and Herman Cain in my Front Page Magazine article, Sheila Jackson Lee: The Race Card Hits Its Debt Limit

And some Republicans are shamefully joining in on the attacks on West and Cain.

Additionally I also explored the latest move in the free speech chess game between the Islamic OIC and the United States over the notorious Cartoonphobia issue in The Cartoonphobia War Goes On

This blurring of the lines has been at the heart of the OIC’s campaign. The term Islamophobia is meant to conflate criticism of Islam with violence against Muslims. With the long term aim of banning both.

“We cannot and must not ignore the implications of hate speech and incitement of discrimination and violence.” Ihsanoglu’s statement at the meeting followed that same track. And Resolution 1618 follows a slower course to the same destination.

While some free speech advocates are trumpeting that the fight is over, it has only entered another phase of the struggle. The Jihad against freedom of speech goes on.



BOMB, BOMB OSLO

Oslo is coming away from a major bombing attack... supposedly by Al-Qaeda. Why would old AQ hit the European capital of peaceniks and appeaseniks? Because it's an easy target.

Remember that AQ needs to launch some kind of high profile attack to show it's still in business after the death of Bin Laden. That leaves it with a brief timetable. America is a hard target. So they needed a European target that would be as easy as possible. Any wonder they picked Norway?

It's still too early to reach any conclusions and by the time you read this, we will probably know a whole lot more. For now we have a bombing and a shooting, both seemingly aimed at the ruling Labour Party. The combination of attacks and their timing suggests a larger group is responsible. It may be domestic, but it may be Islamic as well.

Early AQ claims of responsibility may be revealing or meaningless. But whether or not this was the work of Bin Laden's old gang, the odds are good that AQ will carry out a high profile attack against a Western target before the end of the year.

 I would recommend sticking with Tundra Tabloids for further updates. And whether or not this turns out to be Islamic, consider this all too symbolic story from TT as an assessment of the state of the north.

"...a 20-year-old Norwegian girl raped by a 15-year-old North African asylum-seeker in downtown Oslo...

This particular atrocity occurred on the steps of the Norwegian parliament, facing the Castle. To make matters even worse, as the young culture-enricher worked his will on the victim, he was being observed live via a video surveillance camera by security guards inside the parliament building — who did not leave the building to help the young woman.

As Lemon Lime Moon points out, it's a long way from the Vikings.




 EVERY MAN A TRILLIONAIRE

Back in DC, where surely this sort of thing won't be happening on the steps of congress for another 10 years or so, the rapes are happening indoors.

The Obama Administration is determined to keep the tap flowing. Sheila Jackson-Lee's allegations of racism are just more of the same from a left that links spending to social justice, when it's actually a kleptocracy where spending is not social justice, but a social disease.

Deep in the bowels of the left's Absurdistan, Obama is trotting out his dog and camel show one more time.

Addressing the issue of class warfare, Obama said he wants "everybody to be able to be a millionaire"

Really. Why not a trillionaire like in Zimbabwe where currency devaluation resulted in 100 trillion dollar notes.

Stop aiming so low. If we devalue the dollar enough and force enough companies to leave the country, every American can be a trillionaire too.

Just imagine this could be you...


...and if Obama gets another term, it might be. Just stick Obama's picture instead of the rock to get an idea of what a trillion dollar bill will look like.

Huey Long promised that every man could be a king. Obama can promise us that every man can be a millionaire. So long as a million dollars is worth about what a dollar is today.

But Democrats are finding new ways to waste their time. But their campaign against Allen West by wearing, "We Stand with the Lady" buttons are ironic for a party that allowed a woman to be shoved out in an illegitimate primary and then went on to demonize another in the ugliest ways possible.

Suddenly the Democrats who were making rape jokes about Bristol Palin are all about standing with the lady. So long as it's not Lady Liberty.




DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT ARITHMETIC

As it turns out Van Jones can't add, but that's okay because math is not a progressive skill. It's not something you need to know. It's actually something you don't need to know.

Which is why even though the nation backs Cap, Cut and Balance... the Democrats are fighting tooth and nail against it. Balancing the budget is the one thing that their dirty money spendtrain can't afford.

There isn't any serious economic argument to be made against cutbacks, but the only cuts the left is willing to accept is to the military. And then business can go on as usual. The pigs can go on squealing and the loot can keep on being divided and the debt can keep on growing.

And who will pay for it all?

Someone else. Maybe the Chinese or those rich trillionaires who keep lighting their cigars with money. Who keep flying around the world on their vacations, spending money like there's no tomorrow and always showing off.

You know the Obamas.




ONE HORRIBLE IDEA DESERVES ANOTHER

You love the UN Peacekeepers now for their uselessness and their epidemic of gang rapes in countries they're supposed to be helping... but what if they were coming to seize your incandescent light bulbs?

A special meeting of the United Nations security council is due to consider whether to expand its mission to keep the peace in an era of climate change.

There has been talk, meanwhile, of a new environmental peacekeeping force – green helmets – which could step into conflicts caused by shrinking resources.

I for one welcome our green helmeted overlords. Finally someone will show up to take away our extra resources.

And when Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Moroccan soldiers under the green flag show up in our streets, we'll have no right to object. It was our own fault for not bicycling enough to work.




THE GREEN RED TENT

In Toronto it's Muslim school prayers with boys in the front, girls in the back and menstruating girls excluded completely.

Quite a few Muslims believe that menstruating women cannot touch the Koran or recite prayers, but this is not universal. What that says is the Imam running the show in Toronto is very much old school.

Let's consider some of the practical implications of this latest bit of Muslim Apartheid. The same Islamic jurisprudence that says menstruating women can't participate in prayers or touch a Koran, also says they can't enter a mosque.

It means that placing Islamic prayer rooms in public places may lead to harassment of women and even possibly those passing by mosques.




MSNBC GIVES DAVID DUKE HIS OWN SHOW

After HuffPo's Cenk Uygur flamed out on MSNBC, possibly because no one could spell his name, or because there's no way to spam his idiotic babblings all across cable, the way they've managed to do on YouTube-- MSNBC has decided to give David Duke his own show.

Did I say David Duke? I meant a violent racist bigot whose followers were responsible for terrorizing and killing Jews, Asians and Blacks.

Al Sharpton.

Fun side note, Uygur claimed he lost his show because he was too critical of the White House, which is probably face saving hogwash-- but it's interesting to note that Al Sharpton has become Obama's go to man. His messenger to the black community.

If MSNBC were following White House instructions to put a loyalist in the spot, they couldn't have gone better than Sharpton, who flipped from the Clintons to the Obamas, without a trace of loyalty.

But now that MSNBC has given a violent racist and antisemite his own show, the media can shut the hell up about FOX. Permanently.

Meanwhile Uygur will appear on Olbermann's new show that no one watches to hold a mutual bitch fest of losers about MSNBC.




A PERSONAL NOTE

I don't usually comment on this sort of thing, but John Hawkins' death of the right wing blogsphere piece has stirred plenty of people up.

There are a number of responses, Zilla has a general roundup, but I will that Hawkins isn't wrong, but he overstates his case. These types of pieces have been running forever and they're partly true, insofar as alignment with bigger sites can be a survival strategy, but plenty have also gone it along.

There are successful new bloggers out there and more will keep on rising. The nature of the thing may change, but the internet has made it possible to comment and circulate views and while large sites may consume more pageviews, there will always be room for everyone else.

Personally I consider myself blessed as I haven't followed the traditional tack. I don't self-promote and I am miserable at social networking. But there are good people who have sent and resent my pieces, shown them to others, printed them out and distributed them for me, without ever being asked.

When you write something that really connects with people, they value it. And it's all those people who made it happen and help keep this site what it is. Not just through donations, but through their readership and promotion. I don't promote myself, but people out there unasked do it for me. That is why I'm still here.

I switched to writing a single long article a day that would explore an issue in depth. I almost never take apart existing media pieces. And without intending it, that got me picked up and syndicated by sites like Canada Free Press and Right Side News, where much of my readership now is. And I'm very grateful to Judi and Jeff for doing that, and to all those who helped make it happen.

Appearing at a blogging panel set up by Doris of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in LA put me in touch with some fellow bloggers and readers, whom I met in person for the first time.

Finally I want to mention that I'm a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and I want to thank him and everyone involved in that. Their support has made it possible for me to write more heavily researched articles and in depth exposes like Prince of Lies and the Palestinian Muslim Money Hole.

I began blogging because I felt it important to speak out. I have gone on writing because people have listened. I understand how hard it is when your words go unheard, when there are no comments and little traffic. When your writing seems to have no outlet. But don't fall into bitterness or into the trap of assuming there's only one way to get out of that.

You never know who's reading you and you can never know what influence you have. Three years ago I would never have expected any of this. But with the aid of G-d and some good people out there, it did come to pass.

I rarely speak about myself or leave personal notes. I am not the subject of my own writing, but I feel that this too is something that needs to be said.

Writing, like anything else, is not a destination, it's a skill that you build on. Doing it regularly allows you to communicate better. The more you think about an issue, the more you have to say about it. And the more you have to say about it, the more people will listen.

Don't give up. If you can't get in the door, go through the window, the root cellar, or the chimney. There are always possibilities, some that may find you before you even think of them. The important thing is to keep writing and keep talking. And keep fighting the good fight.


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