The Progressives:"...three cheers for the inventors of poison gas.”

Jonah Goldberg reminds us what the Enlightened if the last century REALLY believed about their fellow men:

“If I had my way, I would build a lethal chamber as big as the Crystal Palace, with a military band playing softly, and a Cinematograph working brightly, and then I’d go out in back streets and main streets and bring them all in, all the sick ... the maimed; I would lead them gently, and they would smile me a weary thanks ...”

That was D. H. Lawrence daydreaming about population control. He was hardly alone. During the so-called Progressive Era, “enlightened” social planners were convinced that overpopulation was the gravest problem facing Western society. That’s why Lawrence gave “three cheers for the inventors of poison gas.”

George Bernard Shaw, a thoroughgoing eugenicist, believed that the “the majority of men at present in Europe have no business to be alive.” H. G. Wells smiled at the prospect that the “swarms of black and brown and dirty-white and yellow people” will “have to go.” In America, Wells’s onetime girlfriend, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, argued that birth control was essential to stem the rising tide of the unfit. Leading feminists, Progressive economists and legal theorists shared a similar vision. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who concluded in the case of Buck v. Bell that the state had the power to forcibly sterilize “defectives,” believed that forced population control was at the very heart of Progressive reform.

The Holocaust diminished the popularity of eugenics, but the panic over overpopulation endured. Paul Ehrlich, author of the scaremongering “The Population Bomb,” predicted in 1970 that between 1980 and 1989, roughly 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would starve or otherwise meet their doom in the “Great Die-Off.” Inspired by such fears, Alan Guttmacher, the former president of Planned Parenthood, was a champion of coerced birth control — i.e. “compulsory sterilization and compulsory abortion” — throughout much of the world.

Read the whole thing...

The Laughing Traitor

Investors Business Daily comments on the Lynne Stewart case:

Three days after 9/11, as the ruins of the World Trade Center still smoldered with thousands entombed in the rubble, President Bush declared at the National Cathedral: "We make no distinction between terrorists and those who knowingly harbor or provide aid and comfort to them."

He could have been speaking of Lynne Stewart, attorney for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "blind sheikh." Rahman was the architect of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 in which a truck bomb in the parking garage was intended to topple one tower into the other, killing tens of thousands. It almost happened.

Besides masterminding the 1993 attack, Rahman planned to blow up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the George Washington Bridge, as well as assassinate the president of Egypt. Since the Clinton administration, in its finite wisdom, decided to treat this as a crime and not a terrorist Pearl Harbor, the sheikh had the right to an attorney.

National Lawyers Guild member Stewart was recruited to defend Rahman by none other than LBJ's former attorney general, Ramsey Clark. Among his other claims to infamy, Clark volunteered to be on Saddam Hussein's legal team, saying the mass murderer was a victim of "selective prosecution."

Stewart wasn't content to simply be of counsel. She made the conscious decision to help Rahman carry out his murderous agenda from his prison cell by passing communications between Rahman to his followers in the Islamic Group, an Egyptian terrorist group.

In February 2005, after 13 days of deliberation and six months of testimony, Stewart was found guilty of "facilitating and concealing communications" between Rahman and his fellow terrorists. Specifically, she was convicted of smuggling into prison a message to Rahman from terrorist Rifal Ahman Tara. The message asked Rahman to support renewed Islamic violence in Egypt.

As the New York Post reports, Stewart then smuggled back a coded dispatch that led to the dissolution of a cease-fire between Rahman's Islamic Group and the Egyptian government. On the stand, she failed to exercise her right to remain silent, proclaiming support for Rahman's violent cause, saying: "I believe that entrenched institutions will not be changed except by violence. I believe in the politics that lead to violence being exerted by people on their own behalf."

Enter Clinton-appointed U.S. District Judge John Koeltl. Addressing the traitor before him, Koeltl hailed Stewart as a "lawyer to the poor and the unpopular," and added: "It is no exaggeration to say that Ms. Stewart performed a public service, not only to the court but to the nation."

Baker Said Iraq Is "helluva mess", the BBC reported?

In a trifecta for unattributed reporting, the BBC finds the Baker Commission a convenient tool for creating the aura of defeat around Iraq.

It begins:

Former US secretary of state James Baker was visibly shocked when he last visited Iraq, and said the country was in a "helluva mess", the BBC reported.

Who testified to his physical shock? No one knows.

It is impossible to parody the rest of the story as a forest of anonymous sources:

1. Citing a unnamed close friend and ally of Baker's

2. Citing unnamed members of Baker's committee

3. ...one participant

But then this is the BBC whose reputation, along with the NY Times, Reuters and the International Red Cross (of faked ambulance pictures fame) is in the toilet along with the famous Koran that was never flushed at Gitmo.

The Price of Defeat and Betrayal

Realists exist in a freeze-frame reality—blind to the long-term consequence of cold, calculating, short-term decisions. Several argue for a pull-out from Iraq. Discussions of time tables and phases are mere spin for withdrawal. It’s too easy to forget or ignore the human costs of such a decision, or the sense of betrayal which we telegraph around the world. In his history of the 1970s, my colleague David Frum relates the story of Sirik Matak, whom the US embassy in Phnom Penh offered to evacuate as the Khmer Rouge closed in on the city. Matak refused, writing this letter to the US ambassador. It should be a must read for the “abandon Iraq” crowd:

Dear Excellency and Friend,

I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on this spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we all are born and must die. I have only committed the mistake of believing you.

The Khmer Rouge shot Matak in the stomach. He took three days to die.

May God forgive me, I have an abiding contempt and hatred for the Congress that abandoned South Viet Nam and the vile creatures, like John Kerry and Jane Fonda, that created the political situation in this country that led to that decision.

For those who were not alive during that time, we not only left Viet Nam but cut off supplies so that they could no longer fight back.

A crime was committed but, like Stalin's willing executioners, the criminals are proud of their handiwork. there must be a special place in Hell for such creatures.

L.A. Times Columnist: Hooray for Violence! At Least They’re Doing Something!

A controversial figure speaks at Columbia University, and students rush the stage, start a brawl, and shut down the speech.

And L.A. Times columnist Meghan Daum applauds:

THE EVENTS at Columbia University on Oct. 4, in which about a dozen students stormed a stage where the founder of an anti-illegal immigration group was speaking, didn’t exactly resemble those of April 1968. There were no arrests, no soundtrack by the Grateful Dead, no occupation of the president’s office. But considering that most young people are considered to be politically apathetic, you have to credit the Chicano Caucus and the International Socialist Organization for trying.



Via Patterico

Global warming: the chilling effect on free speech

The demonisation of 'climate change denial' is an affront to open and rational debate.

Read the whole thing.

Mark Steyn: An election Foley-equipped with frivolity

Who is James Vicini? Well, he works for Reuters, the storied news agency. By "storied," I don't mean in the Hans Christian Andersen sense, though these days it's hard to tell. But they have an illustrious history and they're globally respected and whatnot. And last week newshound Vicini got assigned quite an interesting story:


"WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A California-born convert to Islam, accused of making a series of al-Qaida propaganda videos, became on Wednesday the first American charged with treason since the World War II era, U.S. Justice Department officials said.
"Fugitive Adam Gadahn, 28, who is believed to be in Pakistan, was accused of treason, which carries a maximum punishment of death . . ."

Wow! Treason! First time in half-a-century, since the Tokyo Rose days. Since then, of course, the very word "treason" has come to seem arcane, if not obsolescent, like something some fellow in doublet-and-hose might accuse somebody of on "Masterpiece Theatre" but otherwise not terribly relevant and frankly no big deal: Indeed, the campus left usually gives the impression that "treason" is little more than an alternative lifestyle, like transvestism.

Yet the Justice Department wants this fellow over in Pakistan for treason. Now why would they do such a thing? After chugging through the various charges, Vicini got to the meat of his story: "Justice Department officials denied the case was timed to deflect attention from the fallout over lewd computer messages sent by a former Republican congressman to young male aides, a scandal that may help Democrats seize control of Congress in the Nov. 7 elections."

Cut out that paragraph and have it framed. Or now that the nights are drawing in, if you're at a loose end of an evening, sew it into an attractive sampler and hang it in your parlor. In years to come, you'll spend many precious moments treasuring it as the perfect summation of the 2006 U.S. election.

Read the whole thing.

Jesus or the Church

Rod Dreher, a columnist for NR, gives an intensely personal and moving account of his conversion from Catholicism to Orthodoxy. It is a long and, to me, fascinating read.

What his journey underscores is the need in our lives of a community of faith that regularly reinforces our faith in God. If that community is weak, or if its message is uncertain, our faith eventually dissolves and we are left defenseless against the “World” which each and every moment tells us that we are alone, that we live in the present, that there is no God and no future.

If, as too often happens, the church we attend is not only spiritually empty, but actually works to destroy our faith, the results can be devastating.

Worth reading, including the comments.

I also despaired over raising children in the Catholic faith. Julie and I decided not to put our kids in the Sunday School program at the parish when she learned that the parish was allowing women who didn't even go to mass to teach the faith to children, as part of their obligation to do parish service in exchange for reduced tuition at the parish school. This whole Sacrament Factory approach to living the Christian life left me ice-cold. I started to see my own faith and relationship to the Catholic Church as a purely mechanical thing. I'd go to fulfill my Sunday duty, receiving the Eucharist and then getting the heck out of there, wanting as little as possible to do with parish life. One day, in tears, Julie and I confessed to each other that we were afraid we were losing our faith entirely. This is not a place either of us ever imagined being. To know that you have the responsibility to raise children as followers of Christ, to say nothing about having responsibility for your own eternal soul -- well, to be in that position and to be so alienated from the Church you believe has the right to command your fidelity is a terrible thing.

Great Cuban Joke

From NR Online a great Cuban joke:

On a recent visit to Cuba, Vladimir Putin found that most Cubans' shoes have holes in them, and so he asked Fidel, "Oye chico, how is this possible after 40 years of 'progress'?"

Annoyed, Fidel answers, "And what about Russia? Have you done any better?"

Putin says, "Ombe, When you want I'll invite you to Russia and if you find a single person with ripped-up shoes you have permission to kill him. No problems."

They got on Putin's plane and went to Russia. As soon as Fidel got off the plane, the first thing he saw was someone whose shoes were all ripped up, and so he grabbed his pistol and BOOM! killed him.

The following day, Russian newspapers carried this banner headline: "Old Bearded Man Kills Cuban Ambassador in Moscow Airport."

When Multilateralism Falls Short

Jonah Goldberg, writing in NR Online, reminds us that the truth is not found in numbers; that getting people on your side does not make your side right and, conversely, if you are alone you are not therefore wrong.

The Jimmy Carter vision holds that North Korea’s nukes are coupons to be redeemed for groceries. But the North Koreans pocketed U.S. concessions after face-to-face talks in 1994 and continued pursuing nukes because ... they wanted nukes. Bush’s strategy has been, first, to declare that advances in North Korea’s nuclear program are “unacceptable” and then do nothing, and second, to insist that the U.S. can’t accomplish anything because our “partners” won’t cooperate.

The North Korea dilemma — much like the threat of Islamic fanaticism – is Aesopian. The frog in Aesop’s fable did not wish to be stung by the scorpion. The scorpion’s position? Wishing’s got nothing to do with it. Americans tend to think — and Europeans consider it gospel — that all differences can be negotiated. The truth is that only negotiable problems can be negotiated. Just ask Hamas if everything can be bargained for around a table. Their one non-negotiable principle is that Israel must cease to exist. Beyond that, they’re open to all sorts of creative proposals.

NUREMBERG-STYLE TRIALS PROPOSED FOR GLOBAL WARMING SKEPTICS

DRUDGE links to a Senate committee report:

A U.S. based environmental magazine that both former Vice President Al Gore (http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2006/9/19/11408/1106?show_comments=no ) and PBS newsman Bill Moyers, for his October 11th global warming edition of “Moyers on America” titled “Is God Green?”

(http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/05/09/roberts/index.html ) have deemed respectable enough to grant one-on-one interviews to promote their projects, is now advocating Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming.

Grist Magazine’s staff writer David Roberts called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the “bastards” who were members of what he termed the global warming “denial industry.”
Roberts wrote in the online publication on September 19, 2006, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg.” (http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2006/9/19/11408/1106?show_comments=no )

Legislating Morality

Mike Adams is a professor at UNC-Wilmington. He is tenured and is therefore not afraid of offending Liberals. How he got tenure is a question I mean to ask him.

He has written an excellent little essay on the subject of the often used, and stunningly false phrase: "You can't legislate morality."

Excerpt:

During the 1990s, liberals stated that legislation designed to cut food stamps was “immoral.” But most liberals also adhere to the belief that you “can’t legislate morality.” How can a bill be “immoral” if it can’t be “moral”?

There are a number of reasons why the colonists declared independence from England. Is it fair to say that the primary reason was that the King was not legislating morally?

The First Amendment clearly prevents the federal government from establishing a national religion. Does it also forbid the federal government from establishing a national morality?

Was the 13th Amendment ban of slavery an example of Congress trying to “legislate morality”? If your answer is “yes,” is that sufficient grounds to reinstate slavery?

Those who say there is no objective standard of morality base their opinion on the inability of people to act in accordance with that standard consistently. But isn’t the absolute moral law more likely to be seen in people reactions, rather than their actions? Think about yourself for a moment. Sometimes you tell the truth, sometimes you don’t. But, do you not react with consistent moral outrage when people lie to you?

Read the whole thing...

al Qaeda's "Working Paper for a Media Invasion of America"

You probably haven't heard much about the efforts of the Global Islamic Media Front - al Qaeda's "public relations" team. The group is well known to those who monitor terrorist web sites, but rarely reported on by the mainstream media. (Although the group's recent release of a video game in which the player's goal is to kill President Bush did get some coverage in the Washington Post.)

But another recent effort from the group won't likely be reported anywhere in the western media - at least not directly. Titled "Working Paper for a Media Invasion of America", the recently translated document was originally posted on a known jihaddist web site, but has received scant public attention from it's target audience. No full translations of the treatise are currently available, but a brief description of some of the content can be seen here.

Najd al-Rawi, the document's author, begins by noting that although they've been successful in many ways, the jihaddists haven't fully exploited the opportunities presented by the US media. Inspired by a video from bin Laden addressing the American people with subtitles in English, the author notes that "It seemed the Shayk wanted to send a clear message to his brother mujahadeen to pay more attention to this part of the mission." He points out that videos from the "Shayks of jihad" are in great demand in the western media.

It seems they have already succeeded.

And this is absolutely true:

And in that we see both the political savvy and naiveté of the Global Islamic Media Front. They recognize the advantage - and relative ease - of turning as many Americans against their President as they can (dividing the enemy into opposing camps to be eliminated in turn being a primary goal of effective propaganda) but fail to grasp the idea that this requires no effort on their part whatsoever. Still - you can't blame them for being willing to accelerate the process, or contribute to the cause.

The theocrats are coming!!!!!

It is amazing what people will believe if paranoia strikes. For example, there is a large and vigorous group on the Left who are warning against the imminent creating of a Christian Theocracy in the U.S.

How do we know there are many people who believe this? Their books are best sellers. And they go to Barbra Streisand concerts (just kidding about the last one).

In The Baptizing of America, Rabbi James Rudin—the American Jewish Committee’s “senior interreligious adviser”—offers a sketch of what America will look like if the theocrats get their way. “All government employees—federal, state and local—would be required to participate in weekly Bible classes in the workplace, as well as compulsory daily prayer sessions,” as would employees of any company or institution receiving federal funds. There would be a national ID card, identifying everyone by their religious beliefs, or lack thereof—and “such cards would provide Christocrats with preferential treatment in many areas of life, including home ownership, student loans, employment and education.” Non-Christian faiths would be tolerated, “but younger members . . .would be strongly encouraged to formally convert to the dominant evangelical Christianity.” Gay sex would be prosecuted, and “known homosexuals and lesbians would have to successfully undergo government-sponsored reeducation sessions if they applied for any public-sector jobs.” Political dissent would be squashed, religious censors would keep watch over the popular culture, and “the mainstream press and the electronic media would be beaten into submission.”

Sadly, Rudin’s book is thin on examples of significant political actors who are proposing taking any of these steps, let alone all of them. What he has instead are the Christian Reconstructionists—the acolytes of the late R.J. Rushdoony—who are genuine theocrats, of a sort, and who also rank somewhere between the Free Mumia movement and the Spartacist Youth League on the totem pole of political influence in America. Yet this doesn’t prevent them from figuring prominently in nearly all the anti-theocrat anthropologies, playing the same role that international communism played for right-wing paranoiacs in the 1950s: the puppet master working from the shadows and the hidden hand behind every secular setback.

Like a diehard John Bircher poring over Dwight D. Eisenhower’s speeches in search of the Supreme Soviet’s marching orders, Rudin scans the utterances of evangelicals and their allies for Reconstructionist language. Did Billy Graham once advise evangelicals to run for public office and take “control” of the various branches for government? Then he must believe, with the Reconstructionists, that “all adversaries must be completely eliminated from positions of authority” and that “to achieve a divine end by any means—including cruelty, deception, and brute force—is justified.” Did Antonin Scalia suggest that government “derives its moral authority from God”? Well, he doubtless intended to issue “a legal green light” to theocrats seeking “to destroy all existing political systems . . . and replace them with their own religion-soaked political regimes.”

Perhaps most religious conservatives, Rudin generously allows, “are unaware of the potent ideology that calls for the dismantling of American democracy . . . and its replacement by an authoritarian Christian commonwealth.” But then, of course, most Eisenhower voters were unaware, in the 1950s, that Ike’s administration was infiltrated and controlled by Communist agents—and more fool they.

Similarly, Kevin Phillips announces that “for all practical purposes, Pat Robertson is a Christian Reconstructionist”—not because Robertson has ever identified himself as such but because his start-up university bears the sinister sobriquet Regent, an obvious reference to the Rushdoonian notion of Christians as God’s viceroys on Earth. Phillips doesn’t precisely accuse President Bush of being a Reconstructionist, but he notes that Bush’s GOP gets an awful lot of votes from the Mormons—who have created “a de-facto establishment of religion in the inner mountain West”—and that the Bush family “has been close” to the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his cultish Unification Church. And then there’s Bush’s habit of encoding “private scriptural invocations” into his speeches. Not only did the president use the biblically loaded phrases “hills to climb” and “seeing the valley below” in his 2004 convention acceptance speech, but he also mentioned the “resurrection of New York City.” The resurrection. Clearly something sinister is afoot.

Liberal Paranoia

Jonah Goldberg reviews what Liberals believe about Christians:

If the Christian base of the GOP gets its way, “All government employees — federal, state and local — would be required to participate in weekly Bible classes in the workplace, as well as compulsory daily prayer sessions.” We would all have to carry religious identity cards that “would provide Christocrats with preferential treatment in many areas of life, including home ownership, student loans, employment and education.” Non-Christians would be indulged as second-class citizens, “but younger members ... would be strongly encouraged to formally convert to the dominant evangelical Christianity.” Homosexual sex would be illegalized, while “known homosexuals and lesbians would have to successfully undergo government-sponsored reeducation sessions if they applied for any public-sector jobs.” Dissidents would be on the run, the popular culture censored by bureaucratic Cotton Mathers, and “the mainstream press and the electronic media would be beaten into submission.”

All of that is according to James Rudin in his book The Baptizing of America.

Read the rest...

John Stossel on the McDonalds Lawsuit

I have a question for federal Judge Robert Sweet: If your own children blamed McDonald's for making them fat, would you buy it?

Thomas Sowell Tells Us Why Voting is Important

Some people say that there is no point voting because there is no difference between the two major parties, and the other parties have no chance of winning. However, there is a difference: the Republicans are disappointing and the Democrats are dangerous.

'SCARY MOVIE' PRODUCER MAKES CAMPAIGN AD; MOCKS DEMOCRATS

Via DRUDGE

Of go to Powerline.

What Did Kim Jung Il Do and When Did He Do It?

Here's my reply to a Liberal poster who denied that it was the Clinton nuclear plants that produced the material for the North Korean bomb:

Jeremy, my friend … and you are my friend:

I’ll try not to spout off and I appreciate you linking me to the Sig Hecker posts. Be assured that I read them. Unfortunately they don’t support your claims

You are absolutely right that he North Koreans did not get their bomb material from the Clinton reactors. The best summary I was able to get was by Lee Wha Rang.

Having read Sig Hecker’s report to the Senate, he differentiates between what he observed and what he was told. You apparently did not. His group spent one day, from 10:30 AM to 5:15 PM observing the North Korean facilities and speaking with their spokesmen. I was struck by the fact that his observation of the 50 MWe reactor was, and I quote “We drove by the 50 MWe reactor site twice.”

Now you may not have noticed, but Sig Hecker said that his was not an inspection. Driving by a reactor pretty much settles that issue.

So, in summary, I have not reason to disbelieve Sig Hecker. However, there is a phrase in the”Princess Bride” movie that is becoming famous and applies to your tortured interpretation of his report: “To paraphrase: “I don’t think that report means what you think it does.”

So where does that leave us? Well, it probably leaves us with a paranoid little pot bellied runt who inherited the country from his father and who is running it while people are starving and eating the bark off the trees but who is desperately trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Whether he did that this time around is still an open question, but his determination to do so is not in doubt.

I believe that that has been his objective all along and the Clinton/Carter/Allbright agreement gave him enough life support that his economy has managed to survive this long. Oh, the fools I referred to were not alone; the Chinese have a vested interest in keeping this regime afloat because they don’t want 23 million Koreans crossing into China. And South Korea are not particularly interested in stirring the pot since its capital is within a few miles of the border and they would have a hard time with the flood of refugees also. Besides, what would the North Korean military do if the regime collapsed? But Great Leader Kim Jung Il “The sun of the nation and mankind” is determined to be front and center stage and there we are.

Now as to his nuclear ambition, what he did and when he did it, I refer you to this quote from the Congressional Research Service: The Bush Administration disclosed on October 16, 2002, that North Korea had revealed
to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in Pyongyang that it was conducting a secret nuclear weapons program based on the process of uranium enrichment.

And this from North Korea Advisory Group Report to The Speaker U.S. House of Representatives November 1999:
North Korea's WMD programs pose a major threat to the United States and its allies. This threat has advanced considerably over the past five years, particularly with the enhancement of North Korea's missile capabilities. There is significant evidence that undeclared nuclear weapons development activity continues, including efforts to acquire uranium enrichment technologies and recent nuclear-related high explosive tests. This means that the United States cannot discount the possibility that North Korea could produce additional nuclear weapons outside of the constraints imposed by the 1994 Agreed Framework.

Thanks for sharing.

The best are killed in every generation

By Dennis Prager.

If you are debating whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's future, here is a point to consider: In every generation, especially in the last century, vast numbers of good people -- often the best people -- have been murdered by the worst people.