James Taranto again.
A Clear DifferenceNo comment is necessary, but the stark contrast between human beings and Jimmy Carter cries out for notice.
• “Bush Embraces Pope Benedict XVI”--headline, ABCNews.com, April 15
• “Carter Embraces Hamas Official”--headline, Associated Press, April 16
James Taranto cites an AP headline (with his own headline above it) and links to the story:
Stay Away From Santa FeIronic.
“US Issues New Mexico Travel Alert” --headline, Associated Press, April 14
I know — I'm being redundant. But there have been two outstanding examples in the last couple of days.
Two days ago, the city government of San Francisco decided (like most cowards) that they couldn't stand to allow free speech to anyone who doesn't agree with their approved view. So they staged an “Olympic-sized fake-out”, changing the relay route to avoid the human rights protestors so they could have the pretense (though not the reality) of a legitimate Olympic torch relay. Pretense without reality — reminds me of a show trial. Even the ACLU objected: “Gavin Newsom runs San Francisco the way the premier of China runs his country - secrecy, lies, misinformation, lack of transparency and manipulating the populace. He did it so China can report they had a great torch run.” They even skipped the closing ceremony, and quickly shipped the torch off to Argentina. (Zombie got pictures and described the scene for us.)
Meanwhile, San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi demonstrates abject cowardice and incredible dishonesty in single-handedly killing the free trade agreement with Colombia — even after it was renegotiated to accommodate the Democrats' demands. “Democrats say it would have failed anyway”, but that’s utter BS. If it were true, there would be a vote and the protectionist Democrats would kill the agreement. Instead, the Democrats' leadership uses an underhanded trick, and break their own word, to prevent the agreement's ratification. To get this done, and pay off those who have bribed supported her, Pelosi has had to to trash her own Ways and Means Committee chairman, Charlie Rangel, “a free-trader who has been trying to strike a deal with the Administration but keeps getting rolled by Ms. Pelosi.”
These people make me ashamed to be a Democrat.
UPDATE ON PELOSI: The Washington Times quotes Pelosi as saying “We believe it is possible to bring the Colombia free-trade agreement to the floor under the proper circumstance. But first, we need to address the worsening economy in our country.” This is disingenuous, at best. Pelosi in her statement “reiterated that she is blocking the Colombia trade vote to obtain ‘leverage’ in negotiations”. But she and her friends have also claimed the blockage was because of attacks on trade unionists — so, naturally, they’re taking action against the government that has reduced those attacks by 80%! These present a choice between extortion and fraud.
The reality may be a little different. In place of (or in addition to) one or both of those reasons are likely to be one or more of the following:
1. The Democrats’ leadership is (a) adamantly opposed to free trade or (b) bought and paid for. The extent of this is captured by the Wall Street Journal in talking about Pelosi’s Bad Faith:
The Democratic Party's protectionist make-over was completed yesterday, when Nancy Pelosi decided to kill the Colombia free trade agreement. Her objections had nothing to do with the evidence and everything to do with politics, but this was an act of particular bad faith. It will damage the economic and security interests of the U.S. while trashing our best ally in Latin America.The Colombia trade pact was signed in 2006 and renegotiated last year to accommodate Democratic demands for tougher labor and environmental standards. Even after more than 250 consultations with Democrats, and further concessions, including promises to spend more on domestic unemployment insurance, the deal remained stalled in Congress. Apparently the problem was that Democrats kept getting their way.
So on Monday, President Bush submitted the bill to Congress over liberal protests, which, under a bargain between Congress and the White House for trade promotion authority, mandated an up-or-down vote within 90 days.
2. Pelosi is doing Hugo Chavez’ bidding. The Latin American media have picked up on this aspect strongly, calling her historic move to block the free trade agreement the “Hugo Chavez Rule” and painting Pelosi herself as a Hugo Chavez lackey.
3. Pelosi is so fixated on damaging the Bush Administration for the Democrats’ political advantage that she is, at best, uncaring about damage to the United States. Indeed, the point man on Colombia for Pelosi and the Democrats was recently caught dealing with the Colombian FARC Marxist/Communist terrorists. That’s the guerilla group being funded by Venezuela’s dictator Hugo Chavez. And that may not be all.
Pelosi’s actions are extremely damaging. They have implications far broader than this specific agreement:
For good measure, the double-cross dismantles the only process that allows any Administration to conduct good-faith negotiations with foreign nations. No one is going to take the U.S. at its word if Congress is going to change the rules when it has second thoughts and renege.
Madeline Albright made a couple of stunning admissions in a speech at the University of Florida late last month. She claims the Iraq war is a bigger mistake than Viet Nam. But she also makes a pair of stunning admissions. She says
"The American forces are both the solution and the problem," she said. "They are like fly paper that attracts everybody who hates us."This is an admission that "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" is a valid strategy. She also said
This is one of the few admissions I can recall from the left side of the aisle that our principal adversary in Iraq for the last five years has been Iran. (You know — the one who has been providing the weapons and money and direction to the insurgents to kill our soldiers there.)
"I think one might say that Iran has actually won the war in Iraq."
I think Madeline Albright is about to disappear. She has committed a cardinal sin — she has accidentally told the truth.
Racism doesn't look like Bull Connor these days. Now it is practiced in a much more genteel manner — and often by projection. An easy way to summarize some of this racism is through James Taranto's comments:
A racist dog whistle, then, is a speech that sounds innocuous to the normal human ear but that racist "dogs" are able to recognize as an appeal to them.This approach by people like Stoller is, itself, racist. It is of a piece with charging Geraldine Ferraro with racism for making a simple observation. (Let's face it, the views and proposals of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards are nearly indistinguishable. The differences among them are in personality and in identity politics. Hillary Clinton gets extra votes because of those guilty liberals who want to see a woman — any woman — in the White House. Barack Obama gets extra votes because of those blacks and guilty white liberals who want to see a black man — any black man — in the White House. John Edwards has no identity politics group to help him, loses votes to both the others, and has to drop out early because he is a white male.)What does it tell us about Matt Stoller that he is able to detect whether the "racist dog whistle" has been blown? ...
But you can see where all this is going. If Obama is the Democratic nominee, the liberal message will be that a vote for McCain is a vote for racism.
Taranto continues:
If McCain wins, liberal mythmakers will insist it is because America is a racist country, and their logic will be as airtight as Stoller's and Yglesias's. Whether for political reasons or out of their own moral vanity, those who claim they want "racial reconciliation" are all too eager to practice divisive, if stupid, politics.I would say these people are racist liberal mythmakers, operation out of political reasons or their own racist moral vanity. Continuing:
This comes on the heels of suggestions from various commentators, including Time's Joe Klein, that the Democrats shove Obama and Hillary Clinton aside and nominate Gore for president — because, we guess, favoring a white guy isn't racist or sexist if you're a Democrat.
"I think that those people [global warming skeptics] are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they're almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat." — Al Gore, in an interview with 60 Minutes, March 30 (cited in Best of the Web, March 28.
This is the guy many are coming to expect to be the Democrats' "knight in shining armor", the only man who can save the Democrats from themselves — and from nominating either a woman who wouldn't know the truth if it bit her on the biceps or a man whose mentors are anti-American racists. No wonder Howard Dean wants the race over! Then, he hopes, the press would stop getting pointed at damaging information.
A friend of mine some months ago, as frustrated as I was with the quality of the presidential candidates, said he'd probably vote for Obama because "he can campaign with the slogan 'At least I haven't f***ed up yet!'" And there is much to recommend that viewpoint.
One who supports Obama rather more strongly than that is former Air Force Chief of Staff General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, who is now a co-chair of the Obama campaign. His support is now creating other kinds of waves. Here's a snippet from Gateway Pundit:
Obama Team Member General McPeak called Bill Clinton "Another Joe McCarthy" last night... This time he lashes out at radical neocons and Jewish concerns in his interview with the Far Left website This Is Rumor ControlEven before these recent gaffes, one blogger had said of McPeak
I’m saddened to report that a man I once respected and admired seems to have succumbed to “Obamamania” and thrown his support behind Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama.There are others who support Obama, too — people like John Kerry.
I have a slightly different viewpoint. I served under General McPeak when he was Air Force Chief of Staff — far under him, never having any direct contact with him — and observed the damage his tenure did to the Air Force. As a direct result of that experience, I regarded McPeak's support of Obama as an excellent reason to vote against him. Given McPeak's recent statements, I see no reason to change my mind.
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Now the Jyllands-Posten has re-posted one of the cartoons (the upper one on the right) in connection with the arrests of five extremists plotting to murder the cartoonist who drew it. It was also published by other newspapers in Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and the Netherlands — but not the United States. One of the newspapers said "We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper always will defend." I join Laughing Wolf, Blackfive, Michelle Malkin, and thousands of others in solidarity with them. And with them, I say "Let freedom reign!"
Personal postscript: Yes, this is a little late, but I'm back from vacation now.
A blogger is to be arrested for blogging. We know to expect that in Russia and China, and we've seen it recently in Saudi Arabia. But this one is in Britain. And he's not going to go quietly.
As an American, believing in free speech and the protection of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, I find that as intolerable in Britain as in China and Saudi Arabia — and as I would find it in Canada or here. Here are some of the reasons, in the words of some of those who write better than I do:
“Freedom of expression” did not develop in the West from purely idealistic motives. Nor is it necessarily a pretty thing. Like so much in civil society, we put up with it because the alternative is worse, and we'd rather cope with free speech, than with the free intimidation that results from its suppression.Gates of Vienna (comment):
The civilized answer to speech is counter-speech, not government supression, 'holy' terror, or self-silencing via cowering intellectual (and eventually literal) suicide.Gates of Vienna:
One cannot pick and choose freedom of speech, it either exists, in which case one lives in a democracy, or it does not, and one does not. Islam is not simply a religion; it is also a political ideology. The EU has therefore made the protest of a political movement illegal. This is totalitarianism.James Lewis:
The solution to totalitarianism is well-known. It has been known since the European enlightenment, or perhaps since ancient Athens: It includes such standards as genuine tolerance for debate, a willingness to compete economically in open markets, a reliance on free speech and respect for the individual - because when you respect individuals there is no problem of racism, sexism, or homophobia. Goethe, Voltaire, Kant, Montaigne, Erasmus, Spinoza, Aquinas, Jefferson, Chesterton and a hundred others -- the entire enlightened ethical tradition of Western civilization -- stands ready to be used. Europe only needs to look to its own strengths to defeat today's "totalitarian temptations."On the other hand, let's give the devil his due. If the British want to prosecute Lionheart, and potentially give him a prison sentence longer than that given pedophiles and rapists, the we must insist on at least a pretense of even-handedness. In this context, that would require — at the very least — the prosecution under the same "hate speech" statute of all the imams from all the mosques whose hate speech was documented by Britain's Channel 4.The struggle between enlightenment and the totalitarian temptation has never yet ceased, and it may never cease. Totalitarians are experts in the art of demagogy, sophistry and manipulation, but the bottom line is always destroying free speech, free thoughts and free actions. So it's not that hard to tell the sides from each other, even when the colors change from Black to Red to Green. The question is always: Can you tolerate open debate? If not, as in today's European Union, then you are at bottom a totalitarian. If yes, then you are a classical liberal --- or a modern democratic conservative.
It seems Hillary Clinton has been running around Iowa (& etc.) claiming her husband Bill was the "last elected president" of the United States. And I, myself, heard Rob Reiner on the Tavist Smiley show (on PBS) pushing the meme that Bush was "selected, not elected" to the presidency, to the approval and agreement of the show's host.
I thought this brand of Leftist insanity had been put to rest long ago — including by the independent newspapers' investigations of the Florida 2000 votes and by the investigations of the even less substantial charges in Ohio in 2004. Unfortunately, the Left's view seems to be "My mind is made up — don't confuse me with facts!"
On the other hand, maybe I should look at this century's presidential elections from their point of view. After all, if Bush has never been elected, then he is eligible to run for the presidency now and to serve two terms (eight years). That would enable him to catch up with Democrat icon Franklin Roosevelt.
We always like watching the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day, and today was no exception. We were watching on NBC because we liked their camera angle better. But they quit, and went to other programming halfway through the parade! (To be fair, it was more like 2/3.)
We shifted to ABC, whose coverage was scheduled for longer, but it looked like they were cutting out, too. So we channel-surfed and found that KLUZ, a local Spanish language station and Univision associate, was also covering the parade. (The newspaper didn't tell us about that!) During a commercial, we discovered ABC was still on the parade, and ended up switching back and forth between the two from then on.
We were glad we did. We were glad ABC at least continued their coverage to near the end of the parade, but they still didn't show one of the things we were particularly watching for — the float of the State of New Mexico. Named Passport to Our World and Beyond, it highlights the United States’ spaceport (which is in southern New Mexico), and has a spacecraft and some “space aliens” representing the UFO claimed to have crashed near Roswell, NM, in July 1947. Definitely a fun float.
Image from the 2008 Rose Parade, from Yahoo NewsAnd if we hadn’t been watching Univision, we never would have seen New Mexico’s float here in New Mexico!
I heard Paul Harvey tell this story on the radio at Christmas time a few years ago. I liked it then, and it's only grown on me since. But my attempts to find a copy of the story were unsuccessful — until earlier this year, when I found a similar (but different) story. That enabled me to find the one I remembered, at last. It's still worth sharing.
Unable to trace its proper parentage, I have designated this as my Christmas story of "The Man and the Birds." You know the Christmas story, the God born a man in a manger, and all that escapes some moderns — mostly, I think, because they seek complex answers to their questions, and this one's so utterly simple. So for the cynics and the skeptics and the unconvinced, I submit a modern parable:
Now, the man to whom I'm going to introduce you was not a Scrooge; he was a kind, descent, mostly good man, generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmastime. It just didn't make sense, and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus story about God coming to earth as a man.
"I'm truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, "but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve." He said he'd feel like a hypocrite, that he'd much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed, and they went to the midnight service.
Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier, and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound, then another, and then another, sort of a thump or a thud. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window; but when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm, and in a desperate search for shelter had tried to fly through his large landscape window.
Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.
Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in, so he hurried back to the house, fetched breadcrumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted, wide-opened doorway of the stable. But to his dismay the birds ignored the breadcrumbs and continued to flop around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them; he tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.
And then he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me, that I'm not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow; they would not be led or shooed, because they feared him.
If only I could be a bird, he thought to himself, and mingle with them and speak their language! Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to the safe, warm . . . to the safe warm barn . . . but I would have to be one of them, so they could see and hear and understand. At that moment, the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sound of the wind, and he stood there listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. . . . And he sank to his knees in the snow.
I was depressed last
night so I called Lifeline.
I got a call center in
Pakistan.
I told them I was
suicidal.
They got all
excited and asked if I could drive a truck.
Shamelessly copied from the Maverick News Network.
As a African-American convert to Islam, a soldier, and as someone who actually can read, I would have to say that anyone who thinks what Steyn has said is either racist or objectionable is a complete douchebag. The Canadian Muslim groups that have complained are essentially terrorist front organizations and Steyn should wear there offense as a badge of honor.
I am sick and tired of white liberals apologizing for the subhuman filth that has degraded my beautiful religion. The Islam that I practice stresses self-discipline and tolerance for one’s neighbors. I have fought the Wahhabi scum in both Afghanistan and Iraq and will be going back to Iraq soon to finish the job. I personally find it pathetic to find that I am fighting in Iraq to give Iraqis a right to free speech, while Canada seeks to chill legitimate political discourse.
— Comment by Ty Shareef to an attack on writer Mark Steyn.
“Freedom of expression” did not develop in the West from purely idealistic motives. Nor is it necessarily a pretty thing. Like so much in civil society, we put up with it because the alternative is worse, and we'd rather cope with free speech, than with the free intimidation that results from its suppression.
The proper response to offensive speech and to stupid speech is more free speech, not less. Let them talk, and they will demonstrate conclusively the stupidity of their position. Censor them, and you make martyrs of people who don't merit being listened to — and you make it possible for other idiots to build support for them without having to admit what they actually said.
In the case of the David Warren column, some members of the Religion of Perpetual OutrageTM are offended that Maclean's published an excerpt of a Mark Steyn book, and have filed complaints with the national and provincial "Human Rights Commissions" in Canada. On this, David Warren says
I'm with him.
My hope is that this case against Mark Steyn and Maclean's will be fruitful. It will be, if it inspires enough people -- especially journalists, of all political persuasions -- to express outrage at what has been done; and inspires Canada's free citizens into the necessary political action to put an end to the human rights commissions themselves. The worst possible result, is if the case fails to produce this response.
The House of Representatives has passed a patch to the IRS code to prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) from hitting millions of taxpayers this year, but raising $80 million in new taxes to "pay for" this "tax reduction." The Senate has passed a similar bill but, thanks to the Senate Republicans, without the attached tax increase.
Message to Congressional Democrats: Blocking the AMT is not a tax reduction that needs to be offset. It is merely preventing a big tax increase.
(installed July 22, 2007)
