COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, June 07, 2008

US Based Human Rights Watch Dismayed at Turk Head Scarf Ban



The Turkish Court ruling on headscarves at universities seemed eminently sensible. Islamist dictum and influence result in a one way descent into intolerant, violent and sometimes deadly repression of human behavior. Only the American Left could be so blinded by ideology as to not notice. Their ideology and naivety will be well represented and presented in any Obama Administration. Hard core activists will rule.

HRW contradicts its own professed positions stated on its website:

...Our duty as activists is to expose and denounce as human rights violations those practices and policies that silence and subordinate women. We reject specific legal, cultural, or religious practices by which women are systematically discriminated against, excluded from political participation and public life, segregated in their daily lives, raped in armed conflict, beaten in their homes, denied equal divorce or inheritance rights, killed for having sex, forced to marry, assaulted for not conforming to gender norms, and sold into forced labor. Arguments that sustain and excuse these human rights abuses - those of cultural norms, "appropriate" rights for women, or western imperialism - barely disguise their true meaning: that women's lives matter less than men's. Cultural relativism, which argues that there are no universal human rights and that rights are culture-specific and culturally determined, is still a formidable and corrosive challenge to women's rights to equality and dignity in all facets of their lives.


We may be ruled by such fools.

______________☂______________


ANKARA (Reuters) NYT- A decision by Turkey's top court to annul a government reform which lifted a ban on Muslim headscarves at universities is a blow to freedom of religion and other fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said on Saturday.

Turkey's Constitutional Court overturned late on Thursday a reform which would have allowed students to wear the Muslim headscarf in universities. Analysts said the decision increased the chances that the AK Party would be closed down for alleged Islamist activities in a separate case at the same court.

"This decision means that women who choose to wear a headscarf in Turkey will be forced to choose between their religion and their education," Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

"This is a truly disappointing decision and does not bode well for the reform process," Cartner said.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch also criticized the ruling AK Party for failing to redraft Turkey's constitution entirely, which it said failed to protect human rights, despite launching a plan to do so after it was re-elected last year.

The secularist establishment, including army generals and judges, suspects the AK Party of harboring a hidden Islamist agenda. The party denies the accusations.


(Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)


88 comments:

  1. Benj and Ash are showering each other with compliments at BC about their shared brilliance and insight into the deep meaning of Obama's oratorical masterworks.

    ---
    Newscaper and Gary Rosen tear Ash a new one.
    ---

    I come to Ash's defense w/this:

    Maybe the Barry Barry hears talking today is not the same Barry Barry knew yesterday.

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  2. The secularist in Turkey are behind the curve, trying to impose a "dress code" to stop the Islamist advance.

    Won't work, for long.

    The minority bending the majority to deny their religious convictions, on pain of perpetual ignorance. A policy that is, at its' heart, self-defeating.

    In a free, educated society.

    In Iran we decry those that demand a female dress code, in Turkey we are to applaud them?

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  3. Rat, you are overlooking the coercion of the Islamists. Basra is a prime example. It is not a matter of personal freedom.

    When you were in the military, you wore a hat outdoors and none indoors. That is a dress code. It was mandatory.

    The female head covering is a symbol, that if tolerated will become mandatory. It will not stop there. It never does. It could get as bad a mandatory flag lapel pins.

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  4. Barry wore the flag before he was against it, before he wore it again.

    ...but Barry will tell us what to eat, drive, and set our thermostats at.

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  5. Tijuana's elite flee to San Diego County to escape kidnappings and violence in Mexico

    In San Diego County, the Plascencias opened a new restaurant, brought in their violinist and piano player, and found that they had no shortage of customers. Romesco was soon full of others who had fled the growing violence in Tijuana, including members of the city's most prominent families.

    Real estate agents, business owners and victims groups estimate that more than 1,000 Tijuana families -- including those of doctors, lawyers, law enforcement officials, Lucha Libre wrestlers and business owners -- have made this move in recent years as the drug- fueled violence has worsened.

    People have arrived in south San Diego County with only the clothes on their back. Kidnapping victims released after lengthy captivities have shown up long-haired and disheveled, sometimes with fresh wounds.

    Real estate agents tell of clients with fingers missing, sliced off by kidnappers who sent them to relatives as proof the victims were alive.

    The presence of the immigrants, most in the U.S. legally, is unmistakable in the many gated, master-planned communities of eastern Chula Vista, where parking lots for upscale stores and spas are sprinkled with Baja California license plates.

    So many upper-class Mexican families live in the Eastlake neighborhood and Bonita, an unincorporated community adjacent to Chula Vista, that residents say the area is becoming a gilded colony of Mexicans, where speaking English is optional and people can breathe easy cruising around in their Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs.

    "I always say that Eastlake is the city with the highest standard of living in all of Mexico," joked Enrique Hernandez

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  6. I do see the challenge, duece.

    But let's use Iran as the counter balance, not the Allied success, in Basra.

    In Iran, the head carve is mandatory. Western, female, journalists wear them while reporting, the Standard is so pervasive.

    Obviously this is seen as a retsraint on liberty and free expression. Which we decry.

    Iran, obviously, not a free society, by "Western" standards.

    In Turkey, the Government has taken the opposed course, no one is allowed to wear a head scarve while participating in public activities. Like education.

    This is also a restraint on liberty and free expression.

    The analogy of shouting "Fire" in a theater, the wearing of a scarf?
    Seems a bit over the top, but the secularists in Turkey know Islam best.

    Only it is a debate, that from a Western view, the secularists will lose. Mao and Abracadabra imposed societal dress codes, free societies do not.

    Can Turkey be both secularist and free? As it moves to suppress the Islamists?
    Not by the "Western" standards of freedom and personal expression.

    A tacit expression, by the Turks, that freedom and democracy are not the path to social enlightenment.

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  7. "The Barry that didn't wear a flag today is not the Barry I knew yesterday."
    Barry said.

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  8. So the Turks, slap down Team43's prime tool in advancing Western influence in the Middle East, free elections and personal expression.

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  9. The guy that wrote about Monica Crowley has a piece about all the mistakes made in Iraq, haven't read it yet, but the Democracy fantasy was one.

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  11. The Turkish judges and military are more sensible than the Americans. We seem to wet ourselves over the idea of 'religious freedom' even when the freedom of religion in question is a deadly threat to the Constitution. They know better, and see a deadly threat when it's hiding it's face in a head scarf. Rat points out the obvious logical contradiction, but the bigger point is, these secular Turks see the forest and the trees. One might also say, in order to protect all the other religions, might might need to crack down on the one that is a deadly threat to all the others. We should be so wise, wise beyond a small logical contradiction.

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  12. Benj and Ash have formed a front? Organizing at a community level? Netwrorking between naifs?

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  13. Wretchard catches up with Whit, but a little later than bob did--

    Wretchard said...
    I've started to wonder whether the $45 trillion, or whatever they're going to spend to "fix" it, isn't the point of the whole exercise. That will pay for a lot of catered meals, conferences in Bali, television advertising, contracts and whatnot.


    And add in social control, Wretch.

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  14. "The Barry that didn't wear a flag today is not the Barry I knew yesterday."
    Barry said.


    Obama is losing the one-issue flag pin voters for sure.

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  15. Lilith (Hebrew לילית) is a mythological female Mesopotamian storm demon associated with wind and was thought to be a bearer of disease, illness, and death.

    Lilith

    Folks, there's a picture of a real foxy lady entangled in a snake in the article, very enticing.

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  16. Lest Barry didn't wear the flag upside down, or on the seat of his pants.

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  17. Every time you pay $4/gallon, or when you are kicking the tires on that new rickshaw, think Democratic Party Did This To Me

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  18. Sat Jun 07, 10:30:00 AM EDT....I'll say...Roger that.

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  19. Thanks for the Fred Barnes link, bobal.

    On top of that, the key element of the bill, the so-called cap and trade, took a political and intellectual thrashing. Long touted by environmentalists, cap and trade would sharply limit carbon emissions and allow companies to swap allowances on emissions, letting those with heavy levels of emissions acquire them from companies with low levels. Republicans drew attention to the downside of cap and trade, including slower economic growth, industries moving overseas to countries without curbs on carbon omissions, and a "hidden tax" in the form of revenues collected by Washington.

    Cut off at the pass.


    And this:

    It's sensible for House Republicans to continue holding press conferences at gas stations. But, John McCain is a problem. He opposes drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), though he has come around on increased domestic production in other areas (except off the coast of Florida). Flipping on ANWR may be too much for McCain, though doing so would be consistent with his national security
    argument against spending billions for Middle East oil.


    McCain can make a trip to ANWR and verify for himself whether the nearest tree to the drilling area is indeed 600 miles away. In any case, he can make a case for drilling there without harming himself politically.

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  20. Climate-Change Collapse

    Senators also criticized Warner-Lieberman's failure to clearly specify what would happen with the vast revenues the climate bill would generate – some $1 trillion over the first decade, which environmental groups wanted as a slush fund to finance "green technologies." Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire insisted the proceeds be used for other tax cuts, like the elimination of the corporate income tax. The Natural Resources Defense Council desperately tried to persuade Congress in the 11th hour that the expensive price tag is a bargain because "the cost of inaction" would reach $1.8 trillion by 2100 due to increased hurricanes and rising oceans – an argument without a shred of scientific or fiscal credibility.

    Republicans in the Senate this week did such a masterful job of picking the cap-and-trade bill apart with objections, yesterday Barbara Boxer of California was "pulling her hair out with frustration, " as one Republican leadership staffer put it.

    Environmentalists have always eyed 2009 as the real target year for enactment. But there was no show of strength this week and cap-and-trade may have reached its political high water mark.

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  21. "We should be so wise, wise beyond a small logical contradiction"
    ---
    Like millions of young people in Iran.

    (still wanna see that video again of the foxy lady kickin the stuffin out of the hag)

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  22. Deuce said:
    The female head covering is a symbol, that if tolerated will become mandatory. It will not stop there. It never does. It could get as bad a mandatory flag lapel pins.

    We saw this happen in Basra.

    bobal said:
    One might also say, in order to protect all the other religions, might might need to crack down on the one that is a deadly threat to all the others.

    It's a sad fact of humanity that some jerk has to screw things up for everyone else. The Islamists are simply the global jerks which everyone else must pay the price for.

    Freedom isn't free and Democracy requires compromise.

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  23. head scarf = swastika

    It's that simple.

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  24. Doug:
    Did you catch Mitch McConnell on Hugh Hewitt? He said that Congress is too closely divided for the Dems to run all over the Republicans.

    Bad as they have been, that's something to consider when election time comes around. I'd rather have milque-toast Republicans than water melon Dems.

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  25. Obama's political brilliance is not his oratory skill, but that of decoupling his political wagon from big oil and the military industrial welfare complex. I've been advocating doing the same, A) to reinvigorate the US economy, and B) to decouple US geopolitical considerations from the restraints presented by Jihadi controlled oil.

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  26. Whit,
    I'm for getting secure border Dems and Pubs elected, given that the Dems are gonna have large majorities.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Every time you pay $4/gallon, or when you are kicking the tires on that new rickshaw, think Democratic Party Did This To Me

    Q. What do you call 50 politicians and 50 lesbians in the same room?

    A. One hundred people who don't do dick.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Crap! the first one is a pdf too!

    ReplyDelete
  29. Doug:
    I've been thinking the same thing. Maybe its time for conservatives to infiltrate the Democratic party and develop a bi-partisan approach with conservatives in the Republican party.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Lilith (Hebrew לילית) = of the night
    Lailah (Hebrew לילה) = night

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  31. The Audacity of the Democrats

    Until recently in our history, a President Barack Obama would have been an impossibility. But given the political and ideological climate that exists today in America, the ascension of a leftist like Barack Obama into presidential politics makes perfect sense. Beliefs like domestic terrorist William Ayers's and racist, anti-US preacher Jeremiah Wright's are no longer met with utter scorn or a trip to behind the woodshed, but are embraced, promoted and defended by many Americans. Think MoveOn, International ANSWER, think hordes of young neo-communists and their indoctrinating, puppet-master Marx-spouting professors. Think Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Noam Chomsky, Ward Churchill and his acolytes. Think NYU, Columbia, The New School and Harvard. Most importantly, ponder the makeup and direction of the Democratic Party leadership. Like Barack Obama and his radical friends, it is appallingly far Left.

    Audacity

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  32. Whit,
    I made a post a day or two ago comparing adult Mitch McConnell w/the two morons running for POTUS.

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  33. Oxcart,

    This guy is no Marxist neo-Communist. A tree hugging hippie maybe, but that was only recently coined:

    http://watch.bnn.ca/#clip58028

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  34. Monica Crowley:

    Ch-ch-changes

    "Today's New York Times features a story about the conviction of Tony Rezko, the longtime Obama fundraiser and rainmaker, on 16 counts of bribery, fraud, and money laundering.

    Swell guy.

    In the piece, a statement from Obama was quoted. (What's this with a "statement?" I thought Obama never met a camera he didn't like. Oh, right: that only applies to when things are going well for him. The bad stuff gets a "statement.")

    Obama said he was "saddened" by the verdict. (There goes the gravy train!)

    And then this: "That's not the Tony Rezko I knew."

    Sound familiar? After the Reverend Wright controversy blew up, Obama said that the man seen ranting and raving, full of anti-American vitriol, was "not the man he knew."

    Father Michael Pfleger? When his racist sermons came to light, Obama said the exact same thing about him: not the guy I knew!

    Bill Ayers? Hardly knew him. Bernadine Dorhn? Ditto.

    How is it that all of these people, to whom he was close (most for 20+ years) have all changed? Suddenly, all of them are different people. Now that Obama is a national figure, suddenly, miraculously, they've all changed. For the worse.

    Are you buying this?

    Obama can dress up his radicalism in a pretty package, and he does it well. But fraud is fraud (ask Mr. Rezko.)

    Obama is inflicting a fraud on us: inviting us to believe he's one thing, when his past and his associations indicate he's someone else entirely.

    Maybe someday we'll say: "That's not the Barack Obama we knew."

    That's assuming we ever do get to "know him."
    "

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  35. And then this:
    "That's not the Tony Rezko I knew."

    Sound familiar? After the Reverend Wright controversy blew up, Obama said that the man seen ranting and raving, full of anti-American vitriol, was
    "not the man he knew."

    Father Michael Pfleger? When his racist sermons came to light, Obama said the exact same thing about him:
    not the guy I knew!

    Bill Ayers? Hardly knew him. Bernadine Dorhn? Ditto.

    How is it that all of these people, to whom he was close (most for 20+ years) have all changed?

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  36. Deuce said:
    The female head covering is a symbol, that if tolerated will become mandatory. It will not stop there. It never does. It could get as bad a mandatory flag lapel pins.

    Blogger Mətušélaḥ said...

    head scarf = swastika


    So Deuce, are you in favor of banning flag lapel pins because they might become mandatory? Can you not see the slippery slope you are sliding down? Is the head scarf a symbol such as the swastika? Are you in favor of US government regulation of symbol display? Swastika, flag pins, scarves...what else? Are you willing to embrace Bobal's "wise beyond a small logical contradiction."? For the record, there is no SMALL logical contradiction - either you are contradicting yourself or you are not. Bobal can see the contradiction, DR sees it, you? Hypocrisy could be another way to frame it.

    On a smaller, but really largerr point, you folks are equating being Muslim with being evil. That puts you out there in the radical fringe.

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  37. geeze benj agreed with me and now I'm responsible for his views? You guys are a piece of work.

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  38. Btw,

    I'd ban tinfoil hats as well. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with tinfoil hats, nothing except the idiots wearing them.

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  39. You've got loads of credibility Mats - the guy who's sworn not to come back and post unless *insert reason here*

    Many times you've made that claim. You and Teresita, two peas in a pod.

    ReplyDelete
  40. On a smaller, but really largerr point, you folks are equating being Muslim with being evil. That puts you out there in the radical fringe.

    It puts them outside of the rational mainstream at the least. You can never judge someone evil for being something (Muslim, black, gay), only for doing something (shooting Katusha rockets at schools, having "Kill Whitey" rallies in churches, or picking up men in airport restrooms).

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  41. And, uh, that's my last reply to ash.

    ReplyDelete
  42. The Democratic Party has devolved into a club for the illegitimately aggrieved, the self-absorbed, the self-hating and the perpetually pissed-off. It is a sanctuary where solipsistic malcontents and their disjointed causes find refuge and support. It has long ceased being an earnest gathering of broad minds where man's timeless problems are examined against the backdrop of the Constitution and solutions to them proposed based on the actual realities of the human condition. It is now the political province of the intellectually deceased, where frightened, lock-step ideologues and other small men and women concoct and promote divisive, destructive, weird and cowardly policies developed within a not-so-quaint, quasi-Marxist stricture of gender, class and race.

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  43. So why is so controversial a candidate even in the running to be president?


    Because he reflects his Party's leftist agenda, has unique, prodigious manipulative talents and equally impressive Hollywood attributes. These are indispensable in closing out the dangerous, deliberate game the Democrats have been playing with America's security and its perceived stature in the world. It is a game that has been going on beneath our noses since the election of 2000. Its object is simple: the acquisition of power regardless of cost to the Nation. It is something the American people must be reminded of, made aware of, before they enter the voting booth in November

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  44. Ash,

    The only credibility I'm missing is that of not managing getting you expelled from here. But that lack of persuasion on my part, is more and more supplemented by yours.

    ReplyDelete
  45. that and failing to get a members fee. In both cases you've promised to not come back "until", yet you return. It is hard to take you seriously.

    Teresita, sorry to lump you into the same class as Mats but you have stomped off in a huff on a number of occasions. I'm constantly surprised at how seriously upset people get when suffering the slings and arrows of online debate. Yes it is a rough and tumble world but they are really just words.

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  46. Ash,

    I said no such thing. Your interpretation is your interpretation.

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  47. The "Shah" tried to do away with "religious" dress, also.

    Dint work out too well.

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  48. Michael Yon, the Iraq conflict's Ernie Pyle, best sums up the result of that grinding media assault on the Iraq War and its American leaders:
    "Enemy dominance of the media battle space translated quite directly into military setbacks. Terrorists from many countries swarmed into Iraq to be part of the victory they saw happening on the TV screens."
    Deliberately or not, the Democratic Party and the leftwing media, with their endless criticisms of the Iraq conflict, and their endless public comparisons of that war to Vietnam, sent a direct message to the rag-tag army of ultra-violent terrorists in Iraq who were detonating car bombs in crowded marketplaces, beheading and mutilating civilians and killing American and Coalition soldiers: "Keep the violence up just a bit longer. We'll take care of wearing down America's will to win from within, just like during Vietnam."
    Even violent, under-equipped sociopaths facing the most powerful military on earth know a gift horse when they see one, and react accordingly.
    On the other hand, nearly every bit of positive war news was whispered in quiet sentences or totally ignored. Today, with the Iraq venture steadily closing in on success, the amount of news about Iraq has slowed to barely a drip. That is quite telling.

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  49. Go and check your quotation marks again, Ash.

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  50. The problem with "climate change" (for the globaloneyists, anyway) is that We're Freezing our Nuts Off!

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  51. Continuing with Oxcart's theme:

    “A lie told often enough becomes truth” Vladimir Lenin.

    Friday June 6, 2008
    Prager H1: Democrats Put Their Spin on War With Dennis Prager
    Prager H1: Senate Democrats have written a partisan new report that stops just short of saying “Bush lied, people died.” But they refused to include statements by members of their own party who supported the invasion… Dennis talks to Stephen Hayes, senior writer for the Weekly Standard, about the obvious errors in report… We need to spend $45 trillion to deal with global warming, according to the UN. Interestingly, they call for a massive build up of nuclear power.



    Listen here

    Continue listening after the Hayes interview. He plays Roosevelt's D-Day pray.

    Please.

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  52. continuing Oxcart and Brooke...

    Buoyed by the 2006 election success of their Vietnam-era strategy, Democrat leaders and other leftists began openly calling Iraq an ‘unjust' war, an "unwinnable" war and relying on the short memories of most Americans to hide the fact that many prominent Democrats had actually voted to authorize it. Jesse Macbeth, Jimmy Massey, Scott Beauchamp and other antiwar frauds who admitted faking tales of atrocities committed by US soldiers were praised by the press and the Democrats as heroic dissenters against the evil Bush war machine, their false tales of butchery and bloodlust spread far and wide. Widespread, positive coverage was given to antiwar, anti-American, pro-terrorist activists like Cindy Sheehan, who was sanctimoniously christened America's "Peace Mom" by leading Democrats and the leftwing media, while true American heroes, patriots like Paul R. Smith and Jason L. Dunham, both Medal of Honor winners, both killed in the act of protecting America from her enemies, received virtual media silence for their heroism and sacrifice and little public acknowledgment from Democrat politicians.


    The press and the Democrats did however publicly acknowledge American soldiers when they were killed, when they spun tales of atrocities, when they groused or when they returned home and fell through the cracks. They wanted Americans to be ashamed of their soldiers, to be ashamed of the Commander-in-Chief, to be ashamed of America itself. They needed America on its knees -- disillusioned, angry at its leaders and their policies -- hopeless, sick of hearing about the war and demoralized because then, out of desperation, they would naturally look to Democratic politicians for relief.

    Thats Obama and the MArxist left.

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  53. When to the Party's dismay the Bush troop surge took hold and the situation in Iraq began improving, the Democrats' defeatist rhetoric reached a desperate, farcical crescendo: "The war is lost," (even though objective measurements indicated that it was being won) crowed many Democrats, including prominent ones like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Edward Kennedy, John Kerry and Barack Obama. Prominent Democrat John Murtha publicly tried and convicted US Marines involved in the Haditha incident before those Marines even went to trial. "Bush lied us into war" became the catch-phrase of almost the entire Democratic Party leadership, even though before the war had commenced many of those same Democrats had access to the same information that the Bush Administration used to justify it.


    Power at any cost indeed, even at the defeat and humiliation of one's own country

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  54. In 1970 Leonard Bernstein, famed conductor of the New York philharmonic, giving a party at his home to raise money for those who posed as Marxist-Leninist-Maoists and espoused the cause of liberating Afro-Americans from "capitalist" exploitation, as did the Black Panther Party.

    This was the time when baby boomers were in full flight, their heads filled with drugs, music, free love and revolution to turn the world upside down in solidarity with peasants of the Third World.

    In 1968 baby boomers crashed the Democratic Party's convention in Chicago, and as the fever of the radical movement took its toll in riots, murders and assassinations, Bernstein and friends felt morally superior in raising their fists and opening their wallets in support of those who yelled mindlessly "power to the people."

    Forty years and a generation later boomers and the Radical Chic, whose antics doomed the Democrats in the presidential campaigns of 1968 and 1972, are back in full force, unchastened and non-remorseful, behind Barack Hussein Obama.

    They are all there.The billionaire George Soros with his wallet open, the mainstream media, the Radical Chic of Hollywood, the left liberal university crowd, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger preaching their twisted "black liberation" theology from pulpits, the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson with their "black" nationalist followers; cheering the horde mindlessly chanting "Yes, we can."

    In 1968 the radical left seized the Democratic Party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy and ended the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.

    They snatched defeat for America just when North Vietnam's Tet Offensive was beaten back, and weakened America's leadership in containing communist advances in Asia and Africa.

    Middle America recoiled and seven times in the 10 presidential elections since the Chicago convention voted the Republican candidates into the White House.

    Backs turned

    In 1968 the Democrats were spooked by Richard Nixon. In 2008 they remain obsessed with George W. Bush, while turning their backs on Iraq, as uncaring and oblivious of the consequences as they were in abandoning Vietnam.

    But then the politics of the Radical Chic is about being morally superior, secure in the unimaginable comforts of Upper East Side Manhattan.

    They are back again with a vengeance and open wallets believing they can sucker hard-working patriotic middle America this time behind the candidacy of Obama.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Vin,

    Spending a trillion dollars on a "war" that was supposed to be a $25 billion Panama style operation to remove Saddam (and be self-financed from confiscated Iraqi oil revenues), is not the way to win the trust of the electorate.

    So why was this done? Why was the plan changed? See my post @ 11:29:00 AM EDT

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  56. Mətušélaḥ

    If you need it explained at this point in history then I would say to you that the Oxford English Dictionary does not contain enough words to explain it to you. Nor does any of the philosophies of free men since 1215,The Magna Carta, King John and Runnymede, not to mention the entire philosophy of freedom.

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  57. Mətušélaḥ,

    Your rhetorical device of misstating from the outset the purpose for the mission is weak and is exactly what leftest do.

    You need to go read my 12:37 and then some more MIcheal Yon. Then follow that up with what the entire North Vietnamese cadre's pronouncements on how the left won the war for them. Then do Daniel Ortega to Hugo Chavez and you will perhaps see how the left is actively undermining the US. Then follow that with Senator Ted Kennedy sending Sen John Tunney to Moscow with a proposal to Yuri Andropov to gain his help in defeating Ronald Reagan.

    I might help you understand what treachery means.

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  58. Ash,the next time I put my tongue in cheek, I'll flag it for you. It will be your own little handicapped spot at the bar.

    ReplyDelete
  59. what, the whole Head Scarf issue is a tongue in cheek issue for you or just the flag pin? I appreciate any guidance you choose to offer :)

    Speaking of free speech and attire:

    bobal,

    "
    B.C. hate provision should be excised

    From Saturday's Globe and Mail

    June 7, 2008 at 7:55 AM EDT

    British Columbia's Human Rights Tribunal, which this week has been hearing a complaint against Maclean's magazine, when it rules on whether a book excerpt in the magazine by the polemical and satirical writer Mark Steyn was Islamophobic, ought to conclude that the "discriminatory publication" section of the B.C. Human Rights Code violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is most unlikely do so.

    That section forbids any publication that is likely to expose a person or group of persons to hatred or contempt, because of race, religion and other categories. This is too wide.

    One of the witnesses in the B.C. hearing was an articling law student called Khurrum Awan, who was a complainant in the similar proceeding in Ontario. Mr. Awan has said that the Ontario complaint was dismissed on "a technicality." He is mistaken.

    The Ontario Human Rights Code forbids discrimination in the provision of goods and services, and magazine publication is not a service in that sense.

    There is a difference of substance here, no mere technicality. Human rights codes were enacted to prevent segregation in the form of bigoted refusals, in shops and workplaces, to serve or hire people because of their ethnicity or religion.

    From time to time - for example, over reasonable accommodation issues in Quebec - discourse about matters of public concern will naturally include some discussion of various communities within the country. Vigorous and legitimate expressions of opinion may sometimes get some listeners or readers worked up in harmful ways. But that is not the fault of the speaker or writer of the opinion - not at least in any nation where there is free speech.

    The B.C. hearing has illustrated the folly of inquiries into whether a publication is likely to expose people to hatred and contempt. For example, a recent PhD in journalism and communications, Faizi Hirji, was called as an expert witness. Even if hatred and contempt amounted to a field of scholarly expertise, her doctoral research into identity construction as influenced by Bollywood movies would not make her a expert in the causation of hatred.

    The Criminal Code deals with hate speech, too. But its prohibitions of incitement and willful promotion of hatred are directed at intentional, conscious acts, not at risks of incidental responses to a person's words. Moreover, criminal charges are subject to all the defences and procedural protections of criminal law.

    Mr. Steyn may well underestimate the strength of the forces of assimilation and integration through popular culture, workplaces, schools and mass media, but then again he may be right. In any case, the political consequences of religious beliefs are a proper topic of public discussion.

    Section 7 of the B.C. Human Rights Code is not compatible with freedom of speech and expression in Canada, and should be struck down by a court, if not by the tribunal."

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080607.westeyn07/BNStory/specialComment/home

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  60. flag pin my canadian friend. I merely referred to the logical contradictions, which your southerly neighbors Bob and Rat picked up on. I still will reserve your spot on the bar, just in case.

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  61. I don't see any logical contradiction in a human rights group standing up for the right of an individual to have the choice to wear a scarf on their head or not. I do see a logical contradiction in an advocate of freedom of expression forbidding the wearing of a head scarf.

    Thanks for my own special place at the bar. I guess I could never get fall down drunk if'n I were in my designated spot in a wheel chair.

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  62. Vin, Brooke, PossumTater,

    I don't need to check in the dictionary to know and understand when one is being fleeced. Nor will I tolerate political con men selling me second hand propaganda designed to obfuscate the theft of tax dollars.

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  63. Communists Nazis Islamists, are all groups whose ideology and political goals are antithetical to our democratic pluralistic capitalist society. To my mind, anyone associated with and involved in promoting these groups their iconography their ideology should be subject to the highest possible penalties including death.

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  64. Metuselah: To my mind, anyone associated with and involved in promoting these groups their iconography their ideology should be subject to the highest possible penalties including death.

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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  65. You can never judge someone evil for being something

    What alot of horse shit.

    By that cockeyed reasoning you couldn't condemn a nazi.

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  66. Tes,

    The US founding fathers are not infallible, and when they're in error then they're in error. To my mind, it's well past time to put an end to the scam.

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  67. "To my mind, anyone associated with and involved in promoting these groups their iconography their ideology should be subject to the highest possible penalties including death."

    My preference would be automatic expulsion.

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  68. Never condemn a nazi for saying he's going to put you in the oven. You got to wait until he does so.

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  69. The US founding fathers are not infallible

    That's right. But they weren't considering the muzzies. They should have put in something to the effect that any religion that advocates overthrowing the Constitution is banned.

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  70. Good article, Ash.

    In any case, the political consequences of religious beliefs are a proper topic of public discussion.

    And that sounds eminently reasonable.

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  71. Kind of looks like a reverse hockey stick, Rufus.

    Al Gore, what the puck's up with that?

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  72. Bobal: That's right. But they weren't considering the muzzies. They should have put in something to the effect that any religion that advocates overthrowing the Constitution is banned.

    2Cor.10:4-5 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

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  73. OPEC to Offer New, More Affordable ‘Demi-Barrel’

    by Scott Ott

    (2008-06-07) — With the price of crude oil near $140 per barrel, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) today introduced a new product to meet the growing demand for more affordable oil.

    The new demi-barrel goes on sale Monday for only $90, yet it contains “the same high-quality petroleum in OPEC’s regular, 42-gallon barrel.”

    An unnamed Saudi OPEC member said the demi-barrel contains “nearly 20-gallons of light, sweet crude, and is perfect for those occasions when a full barrel seems excessive or ostentatious.”

    The inspiration for the demi-barrel apparently came from the coffee industry, which learned years ago that the size of the can bears no correlation with the weight of its contents, and thus allows for price flexibility that enhances marketing opportunities.

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  74. Those are fine words, but didn't prevent the muzzies from taking over the southern med and it wasn't words that kicked them out of France and Spain.

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  75. Tes,

    I'm not interested in some Roman's scribbles concerning the ever after. I'm interested in the here now here on earth.

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  76. Mətušélaḥ said:

    "to our democratic pluralistic capitalist society."

    Well it would seem you do need a lesson in civics.

    We happen to live in a republic. You don't even find the word democracy in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.

    But you definitely need to undertsand that democracy isn't the form of government we have.
    We have a republic.Look up the differences, they are monumental.

    You really shouldn't even be posting if you don't understand the form of governmant we have.

    You should be embarassed.

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  77. "..democratic pluralistic capitalist society.."

    Sorry, but I don't see the word 'Democracy' anywhere in that quote. As to who should be embarrassed, I think it quite clear that it is you.

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  78. Mətušélaḥ,
    Parsing your meaning in the Clintonian fashion doesn't alter the fact that the meaning of your presentation was about a democratic government not a republic. You don't weasel out that easily.
    The Federalist Papers # 37-51 will help you understand.

    And you speak of the Founding Fathers as some group that was in solidarity. That was not the case at all.

    We're finished here , you may go.

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  79. Yes, what can I say, you caught me. I was totally ignorant of what a Republic is, and what is a Democracy. Thank you for that education, and for being a true scholar in sharing that knowledge with us.

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  80. I been doin' some deep thinkin'.

    You can never judge someone evil for being something.

    How's that fit in with the your Catholic Doctrine of Original Sin, then, o lady o' the night?

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  81. Hate the sin and the sinner, Bob.

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