27 Comments

1. RWE:

The really bad part is that we are fully capable of defending ourselves against these “wolves” with no help from the government. We are better wolves than they are, as our dominance of the Earth and surrounding space shows, versus their inability to build a functioning radio alarm clock or working flush toilet.

Frankly, compared to everyone else we have fought these guys are absolute pushovers. One Islamic Fascist does the work of three of us, specifically the three guys named Moe, Larry, and Curly.

But nope, our “Leadership” says we can’t let the Jack Bauers that comprise so much of our population fight these guys, The combat has to be by the Ally McBeals.

Jan 23, 2009 - 5:59 pm 2. whiskey:

That is my point RWE.

Moreover, if you are say, Whoopi Goldberg or Joy Behar on the View, or a regular fan of that show, you MUST defend the orthodoxy of belief and PUNISH UNBELIEVERS.

Wilders, Steyn, and people like them are as a profound threat to the social and economic power of Behar and Goldberg and their audience, as Galileo was to the Catholic Church’s monopoly on revealed truth.

IF you admit that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and the Church was wrong, then it becomes obvious that all other sorts of things the Church claims a monopoly on revealed truth could in fact, be wrong.

THAT is why, in particular, WOMEN form the strongest group of support for punishing those who warn against Islamization, and against Israel. After all, Behar is Jewish background, one would think on the surface she would be pro-Israel instead of pro-Hamas as she is.

A deeper analysis shows that her interest as a woman who shapes opinion and wields social power evaporates if we as a society decide to stand up to Islamists. Since then power shifts to soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and so on. Not female talk show hosts shaping “correct” public opinion.

It is no accident as the Marxists say, that the leadership and membership of groups like Code Pink are women. That the hard left is shot through with women. That the leadership of the hard left is mostly women. That politicians of the hard left like Obama draw their most support from women.

Identities and loyalties are shaped by that which gives the most power. The most power in Western society is that of PC enforcer, as in the Catholic nations of Galileo’s time it was in the Inquisition.

The efforts to criminalize non-PC views is indeed a parallel to that of Galileo, and run by mostly women and female patrons.

Jan 23, 2009 - 6:13 pm 3. Smashmaster:

Galileo was not considered a threat to revealed truth. He was a proponent of a controversial theory who went about promoting it very poorly (among many other more successful efforts). The Ptolemaic system was the predominate model, and had been long before the Catholic Church was around. The Church was not against questioning the Ptolemaic system so much as with Galileo’s method of advocating it.

The popular history of Galileo vr the Church is a gross distortion. I’m not a Catholic, I just can’t stand to see that albatross being slung around.

I’m not sure much of what else you say makes much sense. What does sex have to do with putting your faith in an ideology? It does seem true that many on the fringe left are female, but before women started to become more politically active, there were no shortage of male left wing nutjobs.

Jan 23, 2009 - 6:52 pm 4. Mongoose:

So did Lowery commit a hate crime? Is that “hate speech”.

Jan 23, 2009 - 7:02 pm 5. EdGi:

Also consider that the victims might not be only the people the “hate Crimes” proponents themselves hate, but also anti-party people the party hates. Liberal proponents should look at Nickky Katzenbach’s apology to Martin Luther King’s family for the surveillance/dirty tricks campaign he ordered in 1961 to see that “The bell tolls for thee” as well as the hated right.

Jan 23, 2009 - 7:16 pm 6. buddy larsen:

Well, I feel sorry for Matthew Shepard, and I also feel sorry for the victims of the ten thousand ambulance-chasing lawyers who will seek commercial gain from the new law, via cases as likely bogus nonsense as not. I want to support the new president, but so soon come the stinging slaps. As if Tim Geithner alone, and not any professor at any business school, can master the Treasury, so that despite the almost unbelievable moral hazard of installing an IRS scofflaw as IRS chief, we get a guy who attacks on day one the very people whom we expect to buy the Treasury bonds that will finance the 825 billion stimulus package. It’s time to take a look at the so-called Asian Financial Crisis early in Clinton II. Soros was involved, and accused by several finance ministers (most notably the Malaysian) of damaged state currencies of an instigation similar (in the leverage of knowledge of target governments’ inside information) to his earlier breaking of the Pound Sterling and the Bank of england, as was our new fire brigade, that is Larry Summers and Geithner, who stepped in and orchestrated the fix. This strikes me a little weird somehow, given how close the interests of the same group, that is the breaker and the fixers, are now here in this administration. There’s some info on the web, search the three names with [ Asian financial crisis ]. It leads one to wonder if Geithner’s job is to break up with China, which is to break up the global trade system, which happens to be the fondest dream of the union bosses of uncompetitive high-cost manufacturers. Insulting our main treasury customer at this delicate time also makes me wonder just how badly the new regime even wants to end this crisis any too early in the vast power-centralizing process now ongoing.

Jan 23, 2009 - 7:31 pm 7. Gordon:

This is the next ratchet of the Thought Police. “Hate”, after all, is a thought or, if you prefer, an emotion. But it is mental, something that of itself is devoid of action–a state of mind.

So a “hate crime” is a thought crime; you’re guilty of whatever is in your head, as judged by someone else. After all, if the thought/emotion leads to an action chances are the action itself is already a crime: assault, murder, rape, robbery, etc. The addition of “hate” to the mix presumes to know the exact state of mind of the criminal. Maybe it was just an “anger” crime, or a “greed” crime, even a “jealousy” crime. Would a mercy killing be a “love crime”?

If a homosexual is killed in a robbery, who is to know if the motive, the mental state, was greed or envy or hate? Only by the creation of a certain class of victim against whom any significant unpleasantness is assumed–indeed, defined–as “hate”.

So: if I am viciously mugged, it is simply an assault; if my black neighbor is, it is a “hate crime”.

How does the criminal prove a negative? “Honest, judge, some of my best friends are black/homosexual/female–I’ve just always been a plain ol’ sociopath who likes to infict pain and see people bleed. So, please, just the regular sentence, OK?”

Given that almost any crime is fueled by some sort of dark motive or emotion, it all comes down to what the meaning if “hate” is and who the favored victims are and who decides. Sort of like Through The Looking Glass.

Jan 23, 2009 - 7:40 pm 8. fred:

Even my wife, who by the way is, like me, a Republican says that most of the women she is in contact with at work, from co-workers to patients are Obama voters and have socialist leanings.

So, why are women more susceptible to social engineering? I had read that during the 1930’s in Germany, when Hitler first came to power and even before that point most of his support was coming from women. That’s startling. Which is not to say that a majority of the men did not acquiesce to that thug. They did. I just returned from going out with my wife to see “Valkyrie.” There is a scene in the movie where, in a military/government communications room in Berlin, the “news” that Hitler is dead is received. Most of the women start to cry. No one was celebrating. He had that kind of hold on people. Astonishing.

My wife said to me, as we were leaving the theater out into the snowy parking lot, “Fred, it’s scary to think that here we are today in 2009 and it is women who are the majority of support for Obama.” She’s remarked about the cult like adoration he inspires in women across this land.

For some reason we are indeed allowing the vulnerable, lone sentinels out on the periphery to be devoured by this alliance of Marxism and Islam. We won’t be able to defend ourselves unless and until we have some kind of dramatic revolution that knocks the Gramscians on their asses and out of power.

Jan 23, 2009 - 7:47 pm 9. NahnCee:

Start keeping track of how many of Obama’s new pronouncements are just what Saudi Arabia would like them to be. In his inaugural speech, Islam ranked right alongside of Christianity, with Judaism lumped in second place with Hindu’s. “Hate speech” would rank right up there on a Saudi wish list, as would a phone call to Abbas.

I tell ‘ya, oil money bought Obama’s Presidency.

Jan 23, 2009 - 8:22 pm 10. RWE:

Whiskey:

Yes, I think so much comes down to ego. The people who oppose effective action are the very people who are no good at awhat needs to be done. And they can’t handle that fact.

I recall an anti-war, anti-nuke activist saying on a California radio station in the mid-80’s “We can all sit down at our kitchen tables and take action to change things.” Such as to stop the Peacekeeper missile from being developed and deployed. And he had to believe this, because if he had to sit down at a control console instead of a kitchen table and try to launch that missile instead of just talk to other fools about stopping it, then he would be totally out of his depth.

Soft power is for soft people.

Jan 23, 2009 - 8:24 pm 11. RWE:

Nahncee:

But note that Atheism ranked right alongside Christianity and Islam. A first in a Presidental speech.

This guy defines “PC.”

Jan 23, 2009 - 8:26 pm 12. Brock:

Wretchard,

The worst wolves aren’t Islamic, and they aren’t “out there.” They’re in Yale, the State Department and the Hague, and they’re gnawing at the roots of our civilization. They’re “right here.” All around us. The Islamists are just the stick they beat us with. The Left is playing with fire when they do that, but they subconsciously know the same truth as those of Faith & Reason: The Islamists are not, and can never be an existential threat. Theirs is a weak, backwards ideology that produces weak, backwards minds; they can prick up with pins but never forge a sword.

What occurs to me though; why the Left has chosen Islam as their battlefield; is that the Left is engaging in the same tactics as the Enlightened when we defend obnoxious and vile speech. We allow (and defend the right to) the publishing of Mao’s Red Book, The Satanic Verses and Mein Kampf so that we need not worry that “they” will ever come for “our” speech. Likewise the Left defends Islam for the same reason we defend Mein Kampf: as soon as you start applying standards to one “way of life” then you suddenly might come for others.

The Left is defending itself against the slippery slope of cultural questions.

Jan 23, 2009 - 8:28 pm 13. NahnCee:

RWE – he was voting “present”.

Jan 23, 2009 - 8:31 pm 14. Wadeusaf:

I hate hate crime legislation, or anything to do with making a greater crime out of an act just because it doesn’t sell newspapers.

I know that there have been in the past heinous crimes committed that would qualify under this provision, but oftener than not it was more than the dollars that determined whether or not a local prosecutor was not going after a supposed “Hate” crime.

So now equal protection under the law has morphed into more equal prosecution than others are equally prosecuted.

There is an aspect to hate, the act of threatening another person with violence if an action is or is not taken, that is mistaken for a hate crime when in reality it is the making of a threat that is the crime. I cannot believe the aspects of this legislation will have any but bad consequences. Long live Nifong, I suppose.

Jan 23, 2009 - 8:35 pm 15. wretchard:

Interestingly enough, BHO seems to be more wary of memes than politicians.

WASHINGTON — President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

One White House official confirmed the comment but said he was simply trying to make a larger point about bipartisan efforts.

“There are big things that unify Republicans and Democrats,” the official said. “We shouldn’t let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done.”

There’s a great deal of logic to this. Politicians in private are infinitely malleable, especially when a trillion dollars is involved. But memes in public must either be opposed or embraced openly. In this case BHO may be more worried about public opinion that Washington sentiment. The invitation from Saruman to Gandalf who stood beneath the ruins of Orthanc come to mind. ‘Come, come, leave Rush Limbaugh outside. Let us wizards make common cause.’

Are we not both members of a high and ancient order, most excellent in Middle-earth? Our friendship would profit us both alike. Much we could still accomplish together, to heal the disorders of the world. Let us understand one another, and dismiss from thought these lesser folk! Let them wait on our decisions! For the common good I am willing to redress the past, and to receive you. Will you not consult with me? Will you not come up?’

So great was the power that Saruman exerted in this last effort that none that stood within hearing were unmoved. But now the spell was wholly different. They heard the gentle remonstrance of a kindly king with an erring but much-loved minister. But they were shut out, listening at a door to words not meant for them: ill-mannered children or stupid servants overhearing the elusive discourse of their elders, and wondering how it would affect their lot. Of loftier mould these two were made: reverend and wise. It was inevitable that they should make alliance. Gandalf would ascend into the tower, to discuss deep things beyond their comprehension in the high chambers of Orthanc. The door would be closed, and they would be left outside, dismissed to await allotted work or punishment. Even in the mind of Theoden the thought took shape, like a shadow of doubt: ‘He will betray us; he will go – we shall be lost.’

Then Gandalf laughed. The fantasy vanished like a puff of smoke.

But in this case the men who will treat with BHO will be politicians, not Gandalf; and the smoke will appear like a puff and become fantasy.

Jan 23, 2009 - 9:45 pm 16. Tim san:

Anyone remember Jesse Dirkhising? He was a 13 year old boy who was drugged, repeatedly raped and then murdered by the homosexual “life partners” who lived in the same apartment building. That murder occurred mere weeks before Matthew Sheppard met his untimely end but the MSM just did not see fit to burden the sheeple with multiple detailed pieces covering this grisly crime.

I would add something pithy like “I wonder why?” except just thinking about how our national dialogue is manipulated by the intolerant left leaves me in poor humor.

Jan 23, 2009 - 10:07 pm 17. E. Nigma:

Well, maybe he is more afraid of mimes; they can be annoying.

But as Mr. Limbaugh discussed today (bad person that I am, and listening too!), that President Obama’s intent is to separate the Republican Congressmen from their base. “Come, let us reason together”, and co-opt them to his plans. Because the present Democratic majority is not quite enough in the House and Senate. More votes give him more power. If he could pick up a few more Democrat Senate seats in 2010, then he is cloture proof, and the remaining Republicans actually become irrelevant.

Why should the Republican base be energized for a “me too” Republican that votes just like the Democrats? Why not get a real Democrat, because they’ve got the real power, now. So this is, indeed, part of the continuing campaign. Get a strong enough presence in the Congress, bring in socialized medicine and the like, and there will be no going back.

Jan 23, 2009 - 10:10 pm 18. buddy larsen:

“We will do what works,” he said, and no one asked “what works for whom?”

Jan 23, 2009 - 10:13 pm 19. Tamquam:

As one would expect with the Left, which must not name itself of it’s tools correctly lest they be exposed, Hate Crime is not about hate. It is the same crime for which millions of zeks were shipped to Siberia. What is proposed here is an entire class of Incorrect Political Thought Crimes. Ordinary crimes are not truly significant, and can be tolerated if they don’t get out of hand. Political Thought crimes are very dangerous because if left unchecked they can spoil an entire population.

I was going to say that next I thought we would see the manipulation of the past, as practiced by Communist regimes the world over. But upon reflection I believe we see it already. Not so much in the altered photographs and revised histories, although there is plenty of that, but more in deadening repetitions of the spinmeisters which distort all they declaim.

1984 has been quietly growing among us. I fear it may already be too late.

Jan 23, 2009 - 11:02 pm 20. fred:

Speaking of crimes, why have there not been any well made movies or documentaries about the crimes of the Left during the last one hundred or so years? Plenty of material to work with. We’ve had oodles of movies about the Nazis, but none about the crimes of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Ho, Pol Pot, Castro, and, that romantic hero of today’s kiddies, Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Now, granted, the Communists are pikers compared with the butcher’s bill that the Muslims have served up to history (270 million and counting, conservatively estimated), but 100 million in the 20th century is no small number.

Jan 23, 2009 - 11:14 pm 21. NahnCee:

Interesting the different definitions individuals have of “hate crimes”. Some see it as a lynching in the South, others as a homosexual left hanging on a fence to freeze to death, a Mexican gang member cruising through Compton trying to find a black person to shoot at, or a black gangsta riding around West Hollywood looking for a swish gay man to beat up and mug.

I see it as Geert Wilders being charged with saying bad things about Islam. What Obama has in mind most assuredly isn’t just the physical crime of attacking someone — what he has in mind is checking “hate speech”, and I guarantee you that the tippy-top most important part of “hate speech” will not be the “N” word or anything else that matters to Americans. It will be speaking out against Islam.

Jan 23, 2009 - 11:36 pm 22. Fletcher Christian:

“I tell ‘ya, oil money bought Obama’s Presidency.”

Probably. And it bought Bush’s too – Texas oil money that time, as well as Saudi.

Ways to stop politicians, especially ones in high office, being bought and sold include strict, and low, limits on campaign spending and the size of individual donations – with severe criminal penalties for breaking the rules. Thus bringing grass-roots campaigning back into the picture.

Of course, reducing the amount of oil money sloshing around (by reducing Western dependence on oil) would help immensely in this and many other ways. There are very many ways of accomplishing that reduction, and none of them have been seriously tried; I won’t bore everyone by enumerating them.

Jan 24, 2009 - 2:38 am 23. Storm-Rider:

Those in the Marxist/Socialist religion have a long history of tyranny. They first take control of mass-media and education, and are only then able to take control of government. Marxist Socialism is the undoing of the American Revolution its self.

“It is no accident that the European Parliament, for example, reminds me of the Supreme Soviet. It looks like the Supreme Soviet because it was designed like it. Similary, when you look at the European Commission it looks like the Politburo. I mean it does so exactly, except for the fact that the Commission now has 25 members and the Politburo usually had 13 or 15 members. Apart from that they are exactly the same, unaccountable to anyone, not directly elected by anyone at all. When you look into all this bizarre activity of the European Union with its 80,000 pages of regulations it looks like Gosplan…. If you go through all the structures and features of this emerging European monster you will notice that it more and more resembles the Soviet Union. Of course, it is a milder version of the Soviet Union. Please, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that it has a Gulag. It has no KGB .. not yet .. but I am very carefully watching such structures as Europol for example. That really worries me a lot because this organisation will probably have powers bigger than those of the KGB. They will have diplomatic immunity. Can you imagine a KGB with diplomatic immunity? They will have to police us on 32 kinds of crimes .. two of which are particularly worrying, one is called racism, another is called xenophobia. No criminal court on earth defines anything like this as a crime. So it is a new crime, and we have already been warned. Someone from the British government told us that those who object to uncontrolled immigration from the Third World will be regarded as racist and those who oppose further European integration will be regarded as xenophobes.” Vladimir Bukovksy

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/865

“It is true that liberty is precious – so precious that it must be carefully rationed.” Vladimir Lenin

“When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward – or go back. He who now talks about the “freedom of the press” goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.” Vladimir Lenin

“The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.” Vladimir Lenin

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

“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted….Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.” Vladimir Lenin

“We don’t let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?” Joseph Stalin

Jan 24, 2009 - 7:27 am 24. Storm-Rider:

Also, let’s not forget about your property rights; part of your God-given right to the pursuit of happiness. The Marxist clergy in America have decided that they, the ruling Socialist elite, own your labor and your property. They will allow you to keep some of it; but they will, like a giant gun-clinging Robin Hood tyrant, redistribute your property to others – ensuring the votes of those others into the future. If you rob Peter and pay Paul, you are assured Paul’s vote.

So, the assault on your God-given right to liberty, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion, will occur in tandem with your property rights. This scheme was worked out many years ago in Europe, and it is only now coming to a head here in the United States. God help us.

“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property” Karl Marx

“In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.” Karl Marx

“You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.” Karl Marx

“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.” Karl Marx

“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property” Karl Marx

Jan 24, 2009 - 8:03 am 25. steveaz:

Bracing stuff, Storm-Rider.

If America is going to have at least one political party who will stand up for us, it will need to propose an agenda that confronts the entire crypto-marxist agenda being unveiled under BHO.

I honestly wonder if McCain or Kyl or Schwarzenneger have the balls.

Jan 24, 2009 - 9:09 am 26. NahnCee:

Arnold would at least have an up-close and personal view of fascism and what a real Nazi looks and acts like.

Jan 24, 2009 - 9:45 am 27. Tcobb:

I would hope that the Republicans will refuse to participate in passing legislation that will implement the Democrat’s agenda. What they should do, in clear and unambiguous terms, is to voice their opposition to the statist, collectivists policies and give blunt predictions about where such actions will take us. The Democrat’s can ignore reality to whatever extent they wish, but reality will not ignore them. The best way to discredit these policies is to let the people see them implemented.

This would, however, require a certain amount of integrity on the part of the Republicans and integrity seems to be in short supply amongst our political class these days.

Jan 24, 2009 - 10:54 am

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