When I look back on all these worries,
I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed
that he had had a lot of trouble in his life,
most of which had never happened.
Winston Churchill
Tweet of the Day
Without government, who would build the empty subway superstations? http://t.co/YUnwITDnQg
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) February 25, 2015
Image of the Day |
| via Lloyd Cheney on FB |
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| Via the Independent Institute |
Obama, O'Reilly and the Rhetorical Battle Over Islamic Fundamentalist Terror
I've been biting my tongue over the last several weeks as I've listened to both sides debate talking points, and I think I need to address them. I'm somewhat uncomfortable with Obama's rhetoric because he's taken loosely related talking points to things I wrote after the Charlie Hebdo massacre but used them in what I regard a polemical fashion. For example, when people started linking Islam with terrorism, I tried to explain how even a peaceful religion like Christianity had seen zealots engage in atrocities during the Crusades, the Inquisition, European religion wars and sectarian violence (Northern Ireland). (I have seen commentators, e.g., at Washpo and the Economist, try to defend Obama's perspective, but I find these perspectives to be rather unpersuasive.) However, there is no comparison between say the mission of the Crusades (to liberate the Holy Land from repression of Christians and to liberate certain holy sites) and the historical expansion of Islam by military conquest. The idea that some crusaders had engaged in unsanctioned atrocities like rape and civilian massacres as policy is patently absurd, as is the fantasy that the Muslim opposition did not engage in atrocities of their own. Here is a more even-sided discussion, debunking urban legends. Again, consider this extract:
Warraq and the other authors mention the countless mass killings and persecutions of Christians and Jews before the Crusades. The destruction of over 30,000 churches during a 10-year period starting in 1004 AD is little-known. So is the burning of crosses, the beheading of converts to Christianity from Islam, the destruction of Christian holy sites like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the forced tax for non-Muslims (the jizya) and the list goes on and on.What? You say you don't believe this happened? Recall this recent discussion of the ISIS ransacking of the Mosul library?
Residents say the extremists smashed the locks that had protected the biggest repository of learning in the northern Iraq town, and loaded about 2,000 books — including children’s stories, poetry, philosophy, and tomes on sports, health, culture and science — into six pickup trucks. They left only Islamic texts.Or this notorious incident months before 9/11?
‘‘These books promote infidelity and call for disobeying Allah. So they will be burned,’’ a bearded militant in traditional Afghani two-piece clothing told residents, according to one man living nearby.
THE world's two largest standing Buddhas - one of them 165ft high - were blown up by the Taliban in Afghanistan at the weekend.And if you remain unconvinced, here's a lengthy laundry list of recent cold-blooded murders of innocent Christians and/or their clerics and church burnings, particularly in Africa, the Middle East and Gulf Region, even in the US (I had not previously heard of the Muslim convert in Ohio who invaded a church and shot his Christian father dead during services). Whereas there is anecdotal evidence of occasional violence against Muslims, we see no comparable pattern. There is no comparable Christian scriptural context of the blurring between church and state, of military conquest. Whereas we do have a Christian version of martyrdom, it does not involve the concurrent murder of others but of proclaiming one's fidelity to Christ, even to the point of death.
After failing to destroy the 1,700-year-old sandstone statues of Buddha with anti-aircraft and tank fire, the Taliban brought a lorryload of dynamite from Kabul. A Western observer said: "They drilled holes into the torsos of the two statues and then placed dynamite charges inside the holes to blow them up."
Obama opened this door with his dismissive comments during the recent National Prayer Breakfast. And one thing that really appalls me, beyond his intellectually lazy comparison/contrast between Christianity and Islam, is the way a non-Muslim, especially someone who is not a religious scholar, arrogantly pretends to be an authority on Islam and argues that radicals are not legitimate members of the religion of peace.
Make no mistake. In this blog, I have repeatedly pointed out that there are more than a billion peace-loving Muslims, and the fundamentalist radicals are not representative of them. But I have to note the reality of Islamic territorial expansion in the centuries following the founding of the religion and the frequent repression and/or persecution of non-Muslims in many contemporary Islamic states. There is a problem, and Obama seems to be far more concerned about controversial videos critical of Islam (e.g., the Benghazi attack) and did not allow a US presence at the post-Charlie Hebdo rally in support of individual liberties.
Finally, O'Reilly has had a series of commentaries on the Islamic radical problems. First of all, there is no hierarchical Islamic threat; in fact, there are notorious sectarian differences between Sunnis and Shiites. Second, ISIS and other groups really pose no existential threat to the US; far more Americans die from homicide or car accidents than terrorist attacks, but we spend far more in terms of money and infringements on liberty than on domestic safety issues. I'm not in a state of denial about past attacks, which are unacceptable, but we have to realize that meddling policy has unintended consequences.
Obama Vetoes the Keystone Pipeline Bill: Thumbs DOWN!
There is not much to add here beyond whether the Congress will try to override the veto; it's unlikely that would be successful but it would put Democrats on the record for 2016. I was hoping that maybe Obama might do otherwise given recent oil train accidents.
Net Neutrality: Let's Apply the Failures of Telecommunications Regulation to the Internet...
So Very Cool: Harrison's Lost Guitar Solo
One of my brothers shared this post with me; the first video below includes Harrison's/the Beatles' original hit without a rediscovered Harrison guitar solo; the second includes the layover of the deftly-played solo, which I think you can distinctly hear from 1;28-2:10. I have no idea why George Martin cut it out; to me, the solo is freaking awesome. This is like hearing an old familiar classic again for the first time.
Choose Life: Bella Santorum
Facebook Corner
(Rand Paul 2016). Rand struck the right tone on this.
Giuliani's rhetoric has been widely misunderstood, and it's disappointing that Rand Paul didn't go beyond a surface-level analysis. You have to look at things like Obama's infamous first-year apology tour. Obama has this irritating habit of saying or doing the wrong things at the wong place at the wrong time. It's like he went out of his way to validate anti-American propogandists. We have seen other shocking acts like his direct attack on the Supreme Court at a State of the Union after the Ciitzens United decision. Or when he spoke of Trayvon Martin as if Trayvon could have been his own son.
One of my blog's signature taglines is: "If there's one thng Obama knows, it's symbolism." But I'm totally at a loss to explain why he behaves as he does.: who does he see as his audience?
Does Obama love America? I don't know. But I don't think he's that much into us.
[Reader's Note: I'm currently working on a related one-off post.]
(IPI). Last week, the board of Kinnikinnick School District 131 announced it had reached a tentative 5 year contract with its teachers union.
However, until its approval, the contract will be kept under wraps. This means the taxpayers footing the bill will be left in the dark until after the contract is finalized.
"We have to vote on it before you get to see what's in it."
(FEE). The Liberty movement is become increasingly less focused on politics and more focused on creating real, lasting change.
That's anarchism, or anarchocapitalism. Not classical liberalism, which is a more sophisticated, but slightly old-fashioned and certainly right-wing political economy philosophy, where the state serves a primarily economic (rather than primarily political) role in smoothing out what would be called "laissez-faire" economics, but still not quite operating as a "welfare state".
Garbage analysis. Economic freedom is not "right-wing"; it opposes left-wing authoritarianism and right-wing authoritarianism. [To give an example, the Economist is a classically liberal publication and explicitly rejects classification of left or right wing.] Also, the focus of the State, insofar as one exists, should be protecting individual rights, guarding against fraud, violence, etc. Libertarianism is an alliance between AnCaps and minarchists (like myself) and is definitely a political, not simply economic philosophy.
Ron Paul is a Nazi.
Ron Paul is an individualist, not a collectivist. The national socialists were NOT individualists. Völkisch equality: "The Nazis advocated a welfare state for German citizens (able Germans of Aryan racial descent) as a means to provide social justice and eliminate social barriers between the German people.. The Nazis sought to dismantle what they deemed to be an unnatural hierarchy of the middle class and nobility who had allegedly jealously kept their wealth and titles."
Proposals
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Lisa Benson via IPI |
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| Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall |
James Taylor (with JD Souther), "Her Town, Too"
