Elections in Iraq

I'm especially strapped for time today, so just a few short notes....

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Islamofascists Cry in their Beer!

Oh, wait! Beer is forbidden to practicing Moslems! Too bloody bad!

I've blogged on my many misgivings about the prospects for freedom to win in the Islamic world, but I happily admit that at least Afghanistan was a pleasant surprise. Stop by TIADaily.com to see why there may be hope despite the prevalent mystical worldview there. The West has perhaps provided concrete proof to some in that part of the world that life need not be miserable.

The ultimate question, if this line of thought is correct, is this: Might the Islamic world react differently this time around? In the book I'm currently devouring, What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East, Bernard Lewis describes several historical cases in which the leaders of the Islamic world were acutely aware that they were losing to the West. Their solution was to steal whatever expediency indicated might get them through the crisis of the moment. Technology and certain sciences, like the mathematics behind the use of artillery, for example, could help them win wars, but then they'd ignore entire fields of far more profitable endeavor, like history or philosophy.

This is what is really worth watching. There might be a difference this time. Throughout history, it has been the rulers of Islam who have confronted the failure of their polities. But their focus was not on improving their lives, but on maintaining power at home, avoiding military defeat, and keeping pernicious foreign ideas from corrupting Islam. Now, it is the people who are confronting the failure of the Islamic polity, a polity in which they are finally getting a say via the ballot box. Let's hope, for their sake and ours, that when people like Raqeeb Shekhan say, "We've ached for this freedom. We want to be like the rest of the world [italics added]," they mean this to the degree of being willing to learn something from their non-Moslem brethren, and not just better ways to kill them.

Perhaps they already have. Time will tell.

-- CAV

Updates

4-17-05: Corrected a name.

A Recipe for a Bloated State

The Houston Chronicle, which was once the conservative paper in this now one-newspaper town, has become increasingly leftist in recent years. Consistent with this trend is today's article in the "Metropolitan" section: "If history is the guide, it will take more than good advice to get us to take care of ourselves," by Eric Berger. The article, while appearing as news, is actually part trial balloon and part editorial. Its intent is clearly to push for more government interference in our daily lives in the guise of protecting our health. In this respect, it is not all that interesting. What I find blogworthy about it is that it is a good example of the kind of formula I have repeatedly seen being used by leftist "journalists" and other advocates of big government to mold public opinion in favor of the next big governmental intrusion into our private lives. What is the formula? Let's go through it step-by-step. Let's read the recipe that has been used to overfeed our already bloated nanny state.

1. Remind the reader that the government is there to solve our problems.

This is done right off the bat, playing off the title of the article.

Wear your seat belt. Quit smoking.

These were arguably the two most widely recognized public health campaigns of the last few decades. And they worked. Seat-belt use has increased fivefold, and adult smoking rates have fallen nearly in half.

Let's consider the assertion that these government interventions "worked" to achieve their stated purpose. How do we measure this? How one evaluates this depends on what one's values are, right? If you value your life, you won't need the government (or anyone else) to nag you to do something that patently makes sense. In fact, you won't want the government forcing you to do anything. Freedom is the ability to use one's mind as he sees fit. Government edicts, regardless of whether they might fall into the category of "good advice" directly interfere with our freedom because the government can force us to obey its edicts. Once we accept the notion that the government should tell us what to do, the door is open for the government to give us all kinds of orders, many or most of which will not promote our lives, even in such a narrowly-delimited context like fastening a seatbelt when driving.

So in the strict, numerical sense of lives not ending in, say car accidents, it is arguable (but not wholly incontestable) that seatbelt laws worked. But in the larger sense of whether the government itself has become more or less dangerous to our lives, the seatbelt laws have failed. All the lives allegedly saved by seatbelt laws are lives lived less free. Nevertheless, the writer has succeeded in distracting most readers from such petty issues as individual rights by focusing on statistics yanked out of their broader context.

Having shifted the debate to how "effective" the government is at "protecting" us, the writer has now set the stage to excuse yet another intrusion of the government into our personal lives.

2. Manufacture a new problem for the government to solve.

The writer introduces this problem immediately. "Now many health providers believe the greatest threat to the nation's vitality comes from a different foe — fat."

Remember: the writer has already shifted the focus of the reader from his rights as an individual, and from the fact that it is these rights that the government should be protecting. He now has to make the reader forget that he is an individual, at least for long enough to smuggle in the idea that there is something in it for him in bigger government.

In this article, the common denominator between seatbelt laws, anti-smoking laws, and the plethora of anti-obesity proposals being floated around is this: these are all laws designed to "protect" us from our own bad decisions. Consider this: If someone else smokes himself into a hospital ward or flies out of his car's windshield during a crash because he refuses to use a seatbelt, isn't that's his problem? The writer has to make the "problem" of his crusade appear to be the reader's problem.

This is often done in two ways. (1) Stress the ill effects being suffered by countless individuals due to the problem. Tug at the reader's heartstrings while discouraging him from thinking about the issue as a matter of personal responsibility. (2) Take advantage of the fact that these personal decisions are effectively made into the reader's problems by past instances of government interference. Here, this is done by discussing obesity in terms of being a "public health" issue, which is easy enough to do because of how entangled the government already is in our medical industry. (All italics added.)

[D]eclines in smoking have paralleled cigarette tax hikes. Spiraling weights, then, might require similar action.

"There comes a point where society decides that public health is being damaged too much by inaction, and something needs to be done," said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University's Center for Eating and Weight Disorders. "We are moving headlong toward that with obesity."

Local and national health policy experts generally agree that, to grapple with an increasingly obese country, government must do more than just provide basic information.

Whether these efforts ultimately lead to a tax on unhealthy foods — a fat tax — is far from clear.

If all these experts are concerned, it must be a crisis! Well, taxes have been used to address crises like these in the past, and if it's a crisis, we need to act fast! Let's pass a tax! I find it interesting that we seem always to be encouraged to jerk our knees in times of "crisis" rather than think, which is what a crisis most urgently requires. Nevertheless, we, the readers, are supposed to be pretty damned worried right about now and even willing to consider higher taxes! (Many readers will have it in the backs of their minds that the taxes will defray public health costs, but this point is made explicit later. This fact is part of what is used to make readers favor the fat tax.)

Now that the writer has established that there is a crisis brewing and that the government is already there to help us. He now needs to make sure we are sufficiently alarmed

3. Present the reader with blizzard of "evidence" for why the problem urgently needs to be solved.

An entire subsection of the article is devoted to this. In rapid succession, we are presented with the following kinds of facts in laundry-list terms. Obesity can cause other serious ailments. Obesity is highly prevalent in the adult population. A Texas legislator will "not back down" from legislation to add a child's body mass index to his school's report card. A California legislator was opposed in a recent attempt to impose a 2 cent tax on soda. There's a bit more, followed by this quote. (All italics mine.)

Yet some experts believe that as the public becomes better informed about obesity, attitudes toward stricter measures, perhaps even taxes, may change.

"At the beginning, people kind of resent government involvement; they view it as an infringement on their privacy," said Dr. William Klish, head of Texas Children's Hospital's department of medicine.

"But all the government is trying to do is make people aware that obesity is not a cosmetic issue, it's a disease. Once they become aware, once we do that, I think the government can begin to take other, stronger, steps."

History suggests it will take more than just good advice to get people to take care of themselves. Seat-belt use didn't rise until the 1980s, when states began enacting mandatory laws. And declines in smoking have paralleled cigarette tax hikes. Spiraling weights, then, might require similar action.

Note how the writer quickly moves from listing some scientific evidence about the dangers of obesity (which has nothing to say about the question of whether the government should do anything about it), to listing the recent efforts of frustrated legislators to "address" the problem, to citing experts who openly advocate greater government interference in our personal lives.

The writer has to be trying to make us panic rather than think when we read this. Otherwise, how could he expect us to swallow the words of Dr. Klish? In one breath, he says, "[A]ll the government is trying to do is make people aware that obesity is ... a disease." In the next, "Once they become aware, once we do that, I think the government can begin to take other, stronger, steps." I somehow doubt that these "other, stronger steps" will include "shouting louder that, 'Obesity is a disease.'"

Just such steps are outlined in a section designed to lead us by the nose to the conclusion that they aren't threats to our liberty, but minor inconveniences unworthy of much concern: "Penny for prevention." This section outlines just a few of the "other, stronger steps" our government might take. They include: new taxes on soft drinks and sweets. The entire rest of this section focuses on public opposition to such taxes, measured by polls, and a lead-in to the next step of the author's recipe.

4. Give a few feeble objections to the proposed government intrusion.

Now that the writer has created a soil of panic upon which he hopes the seeds of acceptance for government actions will grow, he needs to weed out any lingering objections any readers might still have. He does this by presenting a few feeble objections so that concern for individual rights (which these weak objections are supposed to represent) will seem small. He starts off by citing one Dan Mindus of the Center for Consumer Freedom, which opposes the "fat tax," but only by simpering for other kinds of government interference! Mindus "said the government would do better to focus on encouraging children to exercise than taxing certain foods." Weak objection number one fails to question whether the government should be "fighting obesity" at all.

Further objections are presented in the section, "Where do taxes stop?" Mindus does little better here, asking such questions as whether we should also tax people of their sexual behavior. But either he doesn't make much of a case against the "war on obesity" our government seems to be mobilizing for, or if he did, it wasn't presented.

5. Restate the need for a government "solution" to the "problem," but make it seem like a minor inconvenience.

This was set up earlier, especially in the "Penny for prevention" section, but it's driven home here. As I noted before, one tool for advocacy of bigger government is to make it seem to the reader that he can get something from it. Here, it's lower taxes!

"Look, the federal budget will be released soon, and how much money will be devoted to any of this?" Lee said. "I don't know if they're putting their money where their mouth is.

"This will be our burden for the next 100 years. We can pay a little now for health promotion, or we can pay a lot more later for health care."

Nowhere in the article does the question occur as to whether the government should be paying for medical costs in the first place. This, as I have alluded elsewhere, would be the best way it could protect our freedom. Incidentally, some would feel a greater incentive to better control their weight, and those who did not would fail to incur medical expenses on anyone else.

Obesity -- of our already bloated nanny state -- is indeed a public concern, but until our journalists quit putting out junk food like this for consumption by the body politic, our government's waistline is only going to get bigger, posing a dire threat to our liberty and our lives in the process. A "fat tax" will be just one more intrusion into our personal lives that will make us just a little more numb to the fact that we are just a little less in control of our own lives. That's real danger in this so-called "public health" debate.

-- CAV

A Strangely Revealing Screed

Over at Ego, Martin Lindeskog asks, "How will you celebrate Ayn Rand's birthday?" Well, I've been too busy lately to ponder the question, but I know I won't be reading National Review. While he was at Men's News Daily reading this nice retrospective, I was slumming at Arts & Letters Daily, where I found this silly screed. Well, a trip into the intellectual ghetto can occasionally yield useful knowledge, and despite the best efforts of its author, this was just such visit to the seamy side of town.

I was about to say that the title says it all, but the title, in fact, does more than just that. The title explains the whole, consistently vicious editorial approach that publication has taken towards Ayn Rand from the start. Written by a contributing online editor whose name, Andrew Stuttaford, appropriately evokes some paunchy, pasty-faced lesser villain from -- oh, an Ayn Rand novel -- the article is more remarkable for what it shows us about its parent publication than about anything it has to say on its ostensible subject matter.

"A Strangely Important Figure." It is the adverb in the title which is important, for it suggests at the same time that it is odd for Rand to have achieved prominence, that she is an oddball, and that Rand's nonconformity somehow makes it implausible that she is important at all. That is basically the whole point of the article and of everything I have ever seen about Rand in National Review. Ayn Rand once compared National Review unfavorably to Christian Science Monitor because the latter admits that it is a Christian publication rather than posing as a secular one. Let's briefly see how the other half lives, and why it does so, shall we?

Of a woman whose fiction portrayed heroism as something achievable by man, and whose life often echoed the novels, Stuttaford can only roll his eyes and make snide comments (though I doubt he can do both at the same time).

Even the smaller details of Rand's life come with the sort of epic implausibility found in - oh, an Ayn Rand novel. On her first day of looking for work in Hollywood, who gives her a lift in his car? Cecil B. DeMille. Of course he does. Frank Lloyd Wright designs a house for her. Years later, when she's famous, the sage of selfishness, ensconced in her Murray Hill eyrie, a young fellow by the name of Alan Greenspan becomes a member of the slightly creepy set that sits at the great woman's feet. Apparently he went on to achieve some prominence in later life.

"Of course he does," is all Stuttaford can think to say about the fact that Rand got a lift from Cecil B. DeMille. This isn't a damned cliche! It really happened, and I think it's pretty neat that it did. Stuttaford is then confronted by the fact, obviously unpleasant to him, that a small group of people regularly met with Ayn Rand after she became famous to discuss philosophy. Frat boy makes the following scintillating observations: (1) Rand was (twitter) "the sage of selfishness." (2) Those people sure were creepy. Call me crazy, but here's what I find creepy: people who meet regularly "at the feet" of some cleric to take whatever he says on faith, and then practice ritual cannibalism. Oh! But I'm wrong because more people do the latter.

But Stuttaford isn't finished illustrating the sound of silence with his intellectual report. He has to include the all-important affair with Nathaniel Branden -- just like all the other Ayn Rand detractors out there!

Most notably, Rand had an affair with her chosen intellectual heir, Nathaniel Brandon. While both Rand's husband and the wife of the intellectual heir agreed (sort of) to this arrangement, it added further emotional complications to what was, given Rand's prominence, a surprisingly hermetic, claustrophobic little world, one best described in "The Passion of Ayn Rand" ... written by, yes, the intellectual heir's ex-wife.

First, note that Stuttaford seems to give great credence to a book about Rand by someone who arguably might have an axe to grind. Second, note an interesting parallel here. I was no fan of Bill Clinton, but I was even less of a fan of how certain conservatives would attack him. They'd dwell on his extramarital affairs and ignore the many legitimate ideological reasons to attack him . With Ayn Rand, they do whatever they can to make the affair with Branden sound like a tawdry mess. But why do they do this? If they disagree with someone, why do they head straight for the bedroom when they should proceed, instead, to the drawing room? Because this breed of conservatives is dismissive of ideas as such. They had nothing substantive to say the first time they encountered Ayn Rand and they have nothing substantive to say now. This is probably why they recently, nearly half a century after first publishing it, republished online a famously inaccurate review of Atlas Shrugged (which Robert Tracinski blogs here). The only thing that is different now is that they admit it's inaccurate, for which I suspect we can thank Tracinski.

But the accusation by Whittaker Chambers in National Review that there was a whiff of the gas chamber about her writings is wrong. Rand lived in an era of stark ideological choices; to argue in muted, reasonable tones was to lose the debate. As a graduate of Lenin's Russia, she knew that the stakes were high, and how effective good propaganda could be.

But note the double smear, which reminds, perversely, of how liberals will say "Bush is stupid" and "Bush is a clever politician" out of different sides of their mouths. Here, Stuttaford accuses Rand of making a "stark ideological choice" and, presumably, of arguing her points too stridently. But in the very next line, he dismisses her writings as "propaganda!" (Or are arguments as such "propaganda"?) Again, we see evidence, and pretty stark evidence at that, of the intellectual bankruptcy at National Review. Being "reasonable" means not taking a stand, and taking a stand is done only for the purpose of manipulating people anyway. Ideas in and of themselves are not really important. They are only tools for manipulating people.

Given this view of ideas, perhaps we should wonder how and why National Review intends to manipulate us, its readers. For just one example: Why would presumably pro-capitalist conservatives not welcome someone who offers cogent arguments for capitalism? The article answers that question for us.

In a restless age that believed in the Big Answer, neither historical tradition nor utilitarian notions of efficiency would suffice. Ayn Rand gave Americans that case, perhaps not the best case, but a case, and she knew how to sell it.

"Tradition?" There's more precedent for feudalism than capitalism in tradition. "Utilitarianism?" Who decides what the "greater good" is and whose necks will get yoked or cut for it? Neither of these supposed justifications for capitalism will lead to capitalism if put into practice. The National Review is, in fact, no friend of capitalism. This is precisely why they tar Ayn Rand by first mocking her for being "selfish" and then by speaking of the "moral case for capitalism" dismissively, as a mere "appetite" among those silly, fickle Americans consumers of Rand's time.

So I charge that National Review attacks Ayn Rand as it does because the editorial staff are anticapitalists who view ideas dismissively as just a way to herd people around. Want an example? Mr. Stuttaford kindly provides us with one in his parting shot:

The last image in Mr. Britting's biography is of an exultant Rand speaking at a conference in New Orleans in 1981, the final public appearance of this magnificent, brilliant oddball. Her hosts tried to lure her there with the promise of payment in gold coins and travel in a private rail car.

Needless to say, she accepted.

This reference to Jeff Britain's short biography comes after Stuttaford trashes his credibility as "an archivist at the Ayn Rand institute, the associate producer of an Oscar-nominated documentary about Rand, and obviously a keeper of the flame." First off, why does someone with an axe to grind (like Barbara Branden) have credibility as a biographer, but someone who admires Rand does not? Because the latter doesn't spend all his time rehashing the Rand-Branden affair? Or maybe it's because Stuttaford has accepted on faith that Rand is evil and will thus bend any actual facts at his disposal to make the "argument." So the merits of what these two authors have to say are irrelevant: how Stuttaford can use them to trash Rand is the only thing that matters. Stuttaford's idiot readers won't know the difference!

So how does Stuttaford herd his pliant, wooly-coated readership away from that nasty capitalist? By singling Rand out as apart from the herd. Rand is an "oddball." Even the fact that she accepts payment for a public appearance is made to look ridiculous. The form of the payment, gold coins, and the railroad trip were a nice tribute to Rand's most famous novel. No matter! That, too, is somehow a basis for trashing Rand.

This is a man who is out of ideas throwing everything but the kitchen sink (or, for that matter, an actual counterargument) at an intellectual giant. Aside from what I trudged through at length, there's a silly Freudian quip about a scene in one of the novels, there's the usual charge that her circle was a cult, and even a snide comment about how Rand looked. What a gentleman! Every kind of cheap-shot imaginable occurs in this typewritten sneer. The kind of readers who accept such lame substitutes for arguments are the kind who, ultimately, really don't make much of a difference in the world. The kind of readers who do care about ideas will think for themselves and eventually see through the hokum. They'll judge what Rand had to say on its own merits. Who knows? A few may even learn about her for the very first time because of this article. (Something like that drew my attention to Rand for the first time.) Her eloquent voice will still be heard and will still win their minds.

As for me, I think now I have an idea for how I'll celebrate February 2! I have managed not to see a film mentioned by Stuttaford in his article: Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life. I think that's how I'll celebrate Ayn Rand's 100th. Well, frat boy, I guess you were good for something after all!

-- CAV

The Islamofascists Get Something Right

They openly state that their ideology is antithetical to freedom! Often.

Via RealClear Politics is an interesting piece by Jonah Goldberg, "Don't take the president's word for it - take Zarqawi's." Goldberg makes an interesting integration. The Islamists have correctly identified individualism (via its popular misnomer "democracy") as the antithesis to their ideal politics while many of our intellectuals are still in denial about their (pun intended) fundamental opposition to freedom. Cohen quotes two left-wing intellectuals and Pat Buchanan, then contrasts them to Zarqawi.

[T]he Washington Post's Richard Cohen wrote, "As the late Susan Sontag bravely pointed out in a New Yorker essay published right after Sept. 11, 2001, those terrorist attacks were in response to American policy [emphasis added] in the Middle East - not, as Bush has said repeatedly since, because Islamic radicals cannot abide freedom."

And Patrick Buchanan - allegedly on the other side of the ideological spectrum - has declared countless times, "Osama bin Laden and his crew ... did not stumble on a copy of the Bill of Rights and go berserk that Americans are free [emphasis added] in the United States."

In short, the notion that America is in a war for freedom over tyranny has elicited bipartisan snickering and guffawing.

Goldberg uses the words of an Islamofascist as refutation to these assertions.

Musab al-Zarqawi, the "prince" of Al-Qaida in Iraq, appointed by Osama Bin Laden, came out and agreed with President Bush. "We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy [emphasis added] and those who follow this wrong ideology," Zarqawi declared in a statement. "Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion," he said, and that is "against the rule of God."

And he's not merely a loose cannon among Islamofascists.....

If you peruse the incalculably valuable website Memri.org - which translates articles, manifestoes and broadcasts from across the Arabic world - you will find countless declarations from Islamist groups declaring that democracy is an "atheist" heresy [emphasis added] that replaces the law of God with the law of man, and that anyone who advocates elections is ipso facto an infidel. In his December statement, Osama Bin Laden "ruled" - as if he has any right to do so - that Iraqi forces who aid the upcoming elections "are apostates who should not be prayed over upon their deaths. They cannot inherit, and they must not be inherited from [after their deaths]. Their wives are divorced from them, and they must not be buried in Muslim cemeteries."

Sure sounds like someone hates democracy to me.

This makes perfect sense to anyone who is even remotely familiar with the various tenets of Islam, or even just the meaning of the word "Islam" itself: submission. Of course these principles are antithetical to the idea of every man living as he wants. The interesting question is this: assuming intelligence on the part of those on the left and the right who disavow the idea that Islamofascists oppose freedom, what might they gain by perpetuating such a misconception? As with the Islamists, one need only consider their philosophies to begin to understand.

Why might a nihilist want America to pooh-pooh the notion that its way of life is being opposed? The better to keep her from defending freedom, which will be destroyed. Why might a theocrat want us to fail to see the fundamental opposition to freedom shared by theocrats from a different faith? The better to remain undetected at home as an enemy of freedom.

This is a question that we should bear in mind any time someone airs doubts about the fundamental opposition to freedom posed by Islamofascism.

-- CAV

Kneecapped by Sensitivity

Yesterday, I discussed how multiculturalism is making our prosecution of World War IV more difficult. Today, via other bloggers, I provide specific examples, and from more than one level.

First, via Daniel Pipes, we learn that Islamofascists have infiltrated law enforcement on at least three occasions. I think it's a safe bet that they weren't "persecuted" by getting any special scrutiny for being Moslem before being hired. The one closest to home occurred in Chicago. It is also the least alarming example.

On Jan. 6, 2005, the Chicago Police Department fired Patricia Eng-Hussain, 30, just three days into her training, on learning that her husband, Mohammad Azam Hussain, 36, was arrested in September 2004 and is charged with failing to tell U.S. immigration officials about his role as an active and founding member of Mohajir Quami Movement-Haqiqi, a Pakistani group accused of murders, kidnappings and extortion. On arrest, Hussain admitted he had spent time at a Pakistani "death camp" and learned to use weapons and explosives. Suspicions about Eng-Hussain were aroused when she asked for time off to be in court. She had previously taken the stand as a defense witness.

Maybe this could have been headed off by a thorough background check, and maybe not. But this is a time of war, and I would recommend we start being much more careful.

Second, via Jihad Watch, we can read about the sorry media coverage and poor prosecutorial follow-through of the theory that Islamofascists might be involved in the now-infamous Armanious murders.

The mainstream media [bold added] has done a poor job of covering this case. It has not bothered to explain that the difficulties Copts experience in Egypt are not “old” or even “centuries-old” (as the New York Times put it) — they are as old as when the Muslim invaders first conquered Coptic Christian Egypt. They don’t come from anything Copts have said or done to Muslims, but from the supremacist nature of Islamic beliefs. But in the media in general there has been no understanding of this and no discussion of the Sharia [emphasis added] — or of how apostates in Islam are to be treated, or of what punishment is to be meted out to those who dare (as the Armanious family dared) not to act as the despised and cowed minority they were in Egypt, but as free and equal and proud citizens of this country.

No statement has come from the Hudson County Prosecutors Office [bold added] that shows any sign that that Office has considered these questions, or fully investigated the Copts’ suspicions and allegations. This may not have been a Sharia-inspired killing on American soil, but nothing that has yet come from Edward DeFazio or anyone else seems to deal adequately with the indications that it was. White House Wilsonians seem intent on bringing “democracy” to Iraq, as if that will somehow solve the problem of Islam, and of the jihad that they persist in identifying solely by one of its tools, terrorism [emphasis added]. Meanwhile, an unknown number of Muslims in the United States — possibly including the killer of the Armanious family — are working to solve the problems of Islam by laboring, in one way or another, to bring Sharia to this country.

This passage echoes my sentiment that we need to discuss the ideology that animates our enemy much more frankly. Also, the italicized passage underscores why I detest the phrase "War on Terror." The whole entry is worth a read and further elaborates on how the term "Islamophobia" is being used to keep us from looking at Islam critically, something our very lives depend on us doing.

-- CAV

How Nihilism Enables Theocracy

From time to time, I have alluded here to some disturbing similarities to the nihilistic left shown by the religious right in its political tactics. Specifically, I have discussed (1) How, like environmentalists, creationists dress their dogmas in the respectable trappings of science in order to gain them unearned respect, (2) How the religious right is beginning to use the legal tactics of minorities that seek preferential treatment in order to have their teaching foisted upon school children at taxpayer expense, and (3) How the anti-concept of "hate crime" is being used by some conservative social commentators to describe what are really possible acts of war.

Today, via Michelle Malkin (who doesn't help matters by using the term "hate crime" herself), is a story about an act of vandalism against a memorial to aborted fetuses erected by a right-to-life group. This piece is alarming, not because of the anti-abortion protest, and not because the freedom of speech of these protesters was abridged by vandals, but because it shows the inexorable logic by which crimes against Christians could come to be granted special status, once we accept the dangerous idea of "hate crimes." The concept of "hate crimes" was first introduced by nihilists under the guise of multiculturalism, but it seems to be gaining widespread acceptance by Christians all over the place.

Richard Mahoney, president of the [St. Mary and St. Joseph Family Memorial F]oundation, said they have been lending crosses to Students for Life for 10 years and that vandalism has occurred before, but never like this.

Mahoney is furious, and said that if LSUPD does not handle the situation justly, he has lawyers prepared to file suit.

“Defacing a religious symbol is a hate crime [emphasis added],” Mahoney said.

Mahoney said the vandals damaged more than $9,000 worth of private property, which should be prosecuted as a felony.

But Adams said there is no way of knowing who took what, so the identified individuals probably will be charged with misdemeanor charges.

Mahoney said that if a Jewish or other religious minority group set up an exhibit that vandals defaced, such as the Star of David, the act would not be tolerated. He said a Christian organization should not have to tolerate it either. [boldface added]

“This is not just a couple of broken crosses,” he said. “This is a symbol of our faith. They spit on Christ, his church and his people.”

Notice that Mahoney is not demanding to be treated just as well as others (as he should be). Instead, he's angling for Christians to receive the same special treatment he (correctly or not) perceives Jews to be getting. The vandals should, of course, be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But the fact that the victims were Christian (or Jewish or Moslem, for that matter) should not accord them special status. This is a nation founded on the notion that all men have equal rights under the law. The vandalism cited here is indeed a crime. But the fact that it is against a religious object should not make one iota of difference under the law.

I don't know whether Louisiana has hate crime statutes in force, but note the expressed desire that crimes against religious objects be granted special status as "hate crimes." This is, as I elaborate upon further in this post , essentially the desire that the intent of the vandals be prosecuted legally. In other words, Mahoney wishes to make certain thoughts illegal.

In a free society, only acts that violate an individual's rights constitute crimes, not thoughts, however malevolent or immoral they might be. How could damaging $9000.00 worth of crosses be somehow worse, in the eyes of the law, than damaging $9,000.00 of, say, food? Only if the law has something to say about why the crosses were damaged. Most would agree that freedom of speech is our most important political right, but they would be wrong, for what is freedom of speech but the freedom to express what one is thinking? What does freedom of speech mean when certain thoughts have been criminalized? Nothing. If we accept such legal distinctions, then we move a step closer to outlawing blasphemy. Some Christians might fantasize about this, but they should try thinking about it instead.

I am alarmed, but not entirely surprised that some commentators are choosing to use the term "hate crime" to describe things done against Christians. I have a question for all the Christians jumping on to the "hate crime" bandwagon, but I will ask it after relating a lesson I learned over the course of my life. When I was a teenager, I considered myself a socialist and favored dictatorship. Of course, this dictatorship would force everyone to live as I thought they should live. As I grew older, I remembered this fantasy, especially at times when I was not fully free to act as I wished. During military training, for example, it did not matter what I thought or whether my way of doing things really would have been better: I was powerless to change things. This, not my fantasy of what life would be like under "my dictatorship," was but a taste of what a dictatorship would really be like. So it would be for many Christians if "Christianity" got special status under the law.

So here's my question. What if you get your wish and crimes against Christians become worse than those against everyone else? For that matter, let's shoot for the moon and say that blasphemy is made illegal. Sound good? But what if it's not your sect of Christianity? And what if your sect is regarded as heretical -- beyond the pale of Christianity -- and anything you say in its defense is illegal because it constitutes blasphemy?

Maybe a secular government and a pluralistic society are worthwhile, after all.

This business about "hate crimes" is very alarming indeed, but not for the reasons of those shouting "hate crime" the loudest. Those of us who value freedom should keep an eagle eye out for anyone pushing the dangerous notion of "hate crimes."

-- CAV

Covering the War

In an invited column at the LA Times, Hugh Hewitt makes a halfway decent case for newspapers covering the misnamed "War on Terror" more like the real war it is.

Defenders of The Times might point out that in the last four years more than 10,000 stories in this paper have used the words "terror" or "terrorism." But my complaint is not about quantity. My complaint is that The Times has chosen to cover the global war on terrorism mainly through stories it treats as distinct, even though they are interconnected in profound ways with immediate consequences for every American [emphasis added]. Readers need to be told in more detail and more repeatedly how the Islamist bombs that killed almost 200 civilians in Madrid are related to Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi's Al Qaeda-linked thugs, who continue to butcher pro-democracy Iraqis, for example. They need to be told over and over that members of this network, however loosely linked, continue to see the U.S. as their most tempting target. (via RealClearPolitics)

This is all well and good. So What does Hewitt recommend?

• Do more to identify and inform the readers on the organization, leadership and capabilities of the Islamist terrorist network, paying more attention to experts who support the war in Iraq and believe, along with President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and many others, that the battles there will ultimately slow the spread of terrorism elsewhere.

• Start a daily — a daily — feature on the Global War on Terrorism and call it that. Explain the money trail and detail the leadership and do so with the repetition that assures that readers are not overwhelmed with one giant aircraft carrier of a piece. Give them the digestible segments that make for understanding. Where does the support come from and who manages the accounts? Are there names behind the cash that funds the madrasas that churn out the jihadists? What has been done to stop the funding? Beneath Osama Bin Laden, his top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, and the Jordanian Zarqawi, who are the generals, the colonels and the rising young officers of the movement? Tell us and tell us again as reporters turn up new information. And alert readers to the many widely visited and cited blogs that have emerged as sources of analysis of this war's intricacies — among them the Belmont Club (belmontclub.blogspot.com), the Command Post (www.command-post.org), and the Fourth Rail (www.billroggio.com).

These recommendations are also both good, but they are alone not enough. They fail to address the failings of our media to cover the ideological aspect of this war. Even though much of the press sympathized with the Communists during the Cold War, at least the general public could get an idea from their coverage that something united the grandstanding of Russia and China, and the revolutions that kept popping up all over the third world. That something was, of course, the international Communist movement.

Aside from the commonplace of knowing one's enemy, such considerations would have affected Hewitt's very column! Hewitt says, "Another attack on the United States is inevitable." What of the New Jersey murders of the Armanious family, which are looking all but certain to be motivated by religion? Wouldn't these constitute at the very least a raid by Islamofascist barbarians?

This war, which I prefer to call "World War IV" after Norman Podhoretz's fashion, is unique among the great conflicts of our nation since the turn of the twentieth century in that it is being fought partly on our own soil. We realize this only if we consider the role of ideology in this conflict. Paying none, or too little attention, to this allows us to fail to make the connection that such so-called "hate crimes" are really acts of war. As a result, we fail to realize that certain "domestic crimes" are really skirmishes. And we fail to react to them as military problems. Indeed, the very political correctness that causes us to ignore the integral role of Islam in animating our foes is also in danger of causing us to fall into the trap of using the wrong methods to fight them: hate crime legislation!

Yesterday, I blogged on an obscene editorial by the executive director of the local branch of CAIR. She used the term "Islamophobic" when discussing our nation's concerns with terrorism. But what does that term mean? It means "fear of Islam." Although this term is used pejoratively like "homophobia," the fact is that there is nothing moral about fear: it's simply an emotion, one that is experienced when one's life or values are being threatened. So what is really being done when we are being condemned for "Islamophobia" is we are being tried and found wanting for our evaluation of Islam as a threat. This can either be a valid moral judgment or it can be an unjust charge. It all depends on whether Islam really poses a threat to us nonbelievers.

So does it? Come to your own conclusions after considering how plausible it is that the Coptic Christian family were murdered by Moslems practicing taqiyya (or religious deception -- what a "great" religion!). From the Counterterrorism Blog:

Yesterday, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch introduced an intriguing -- and potentially important -- new possibility: The murders may be the work of fake converts from Islam to Christianity [emphasis added]. A close friend of Hossam Armanious relayed the following to Spencer: "The Armanious family had inspired several Muslims to convert to Christianity — or thought they had. These converts were actually practicing taqiyya, or religious deception, pretending to be friends of these Christians in order to strengthen themselves against them, as in Qur'an 3:28: 'Let believers not make friends with infidels in preference to the faithful -- he that does this has nothing to hope for from Allah -- except in self-defense.' It was these 'converts' who knocked on the door of the Armanious home. Of course, the family, not suspecting the deception, was happy to see the 'converted' men and willingly let them in to their home. That's why there was no sign of forced entry. Then the 'converted' Muslims did their grisly work."

Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch quotes Hugh Fitzgerald on just how upright this sort of thing is, judged by the "light" of Islam:

To many Muslims, the Christians of the Middle East are supposed to carry their dhimmitude with them, and these Copts violated their pact. They owed everything [to] the celebrated kindness of Islam [emphasis added], which allowed them to live as long as they strictly adhered to the rules of dhimmitude. This they failed to do. They may have been butchered, but it was strictly according to the rules [emphais added]. They violated their agreement, and lost the right to live. Whoever killed them acted, it would seem, in defense of Islam [!] and against these Copts who had forgotten their place. Que voulez-vous, monsieur? Don’t worry. It was all strictly halal [permitted in Islamic law].

To top it all off, Malkin quotes another Jihad Watch post to the effect that Moslems are bragging about the attacks!

The good planting has started to yield thank Allah and soon, Allah willing, an intense Islamic revolution all across America that holds the right and bring down the falsehood that they’ve created.

So it was strictly halal for a family to be decapitated because they didn't stay in their place as bootlickers to their Moslem masters, and some Moslems are openly celebrating the fact! The first step to fighting off an enemy is to recognize that he poses a threat. I don't think I need to make an argument that Islamofascism is a threat. The press needs to start reporting it as such. If we suffer from anything with regard to "Islamophobia," it appears to me to be from having too little of it.

Via the Charlotte Capitalist, I learned of a post by Harry Roolaart to the effect that Martin Luther King Day had become a nightmare due to its expropriation multiculturalists. He says,

The multi-culturalists use this day to push their belief that all cultures - no matter how despicable, including those who to this day practice slavery - are equal.

But Dr. King's speech was not a multi-culturalist sermon. The speech did not say that cultures are equal but rather offered Americans the vision of a better culture. Observe the hypocrisy of the multi-culturalists turning out for the celebrations of his birthday. Where Dr. King fought to make our culture more valuable [emphasis added] and while he inspired others to do the same, this pretentious group applauds him while viciously proclaiming that, in fact, any aspiration to improve one's culture necessarily comes at the expense of those of different cultures.

Indeed. King showed great courage in judging the culture of the time and finding it wanting, and it is precisely this virtue the multiculturalists are fighting against today, and in his name. We have to stand up for our lives by fighting for the right to pass judgement on the culture of Islam. (And Islamists certainly have no bones about doing the same with respect to ours.) Roolaart has it right: this is a nightmare. Sadly, waking up from it will be like discovering we are in a burning house. But wake up we must, if we are to see the true nature of what is threatening us and so take action to survive.

-- CAV

The Hunt Finally Begins

I see that Michelle Malkin, always hot on the trail of CAIR, is finally interested in Rizwan Mowlana! I smelled a rat both times I saw him on Fox News earlier this month. I may have some more interesting things to add about this as it unfolds, depending on what turns up. In any event, I'm glad to see that a bloodhound like Malkin is on the hunt. I don't particularly trust anyone from CAIR, especially when they're asking for money. This is the good news. So far, though, Mowlana is still getting very good press, as the Washington Post story she points to shows.

In addition to backing up my own belief that Mowlana is an important member of CAIR, Malkin reports that his media blitz was even bigger than I realized.

There's a huge, 1,947-word page A1 story in the Washington Post today that I urge you all to read, all the way through. Reporter Jacqueline L. Salmon follows Rizwan Mowlana--local director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations for Md./Va. and head of a newly-created charity called "Asia Relief"--to Sri Lanka as he sets out to distribute aid and supplies to tsunami victims. The story is a glowing portrait of a crusading humanitarian on a difficult mission to save his native land.

Mowlana raised a ton of money and raked in mounds of clothing and other donations from compassionate Americans in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. He hit a media bonanza with appearances or mentions on every major cable news network as well as ABC News' World News Tonight; an interview on Voice of America; and numerous mentions in the Post [emphasis added] (here, here, here , and here) and USA Today. After Mowlana appeared on FOX News, a Modesto, Calif., businessman stepped forward to donate $1 million worth of medical supplies.

Malkin also asks a few pertinent questions about Mowlana's story line, including (1) How many relatives, exactly, did he lose? (2) How old, exactly, was an infant relative he says survived? and (3) What are the precise details of this miraculous survival? Hee hee hee! This is good stuff!

Go get 'im girl!

-- CAV

With "Non-Haters" Like These ...

Appearing in the opinion section of today's Houston Chronicle is a very disingenuous piece by the executive director of the Houston cell -- er, branch -- of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), one Iesa Galloway. CAIR is an organization that, as I have pointed out before is suspected by many in our media and our government of having ties to terrorist organizations. (Oddly enough, Galloway does not, as far as I can tell from the article, have either a nom de guerre or any other alias.) But as the pen is mightier than the sword, this is one practicioner of the "religion of peace" who need not strap on a bomb (just yet anyway) to wage "holy" war. She need only write a mawkish editorial to whitewash her bloody religion with altruistic language that readers from both the multiculturalist left and the religious right will probably appreciate.

The article, "A Texan's Pilgrimage to Mecca," starts off straining the credulity of anyone who pays much attention to CAIR: It seems that Galloway -- who, remember, holds a leadership position in a national "civil rights" organization that files lawsuits on behalf of Moslems against mean, repressive Americans -- had doubts for her safety when considering whether she should attend the hajj!

Only two things stood in my way. First the issues of terrorism, Islamophobia and the State Department warning that Americans should not travel in the region.

Second, I wondered how I would be accepted. Yes, Muslims are supposed to be tied to one another in a bond stronger and nobler than other kinships. This bond is rooted in prayer and reflected through every aspect of Islamic life. But how would other Muslims performing Hajj treat me, an American? Would I be accepted, with my biracial background -- Anglo and Hispanic American -- as one of them, and one with them?

Would the bond that I enjoy here be felt among Muslims there, regardless of nationality, international conflicts and propaganda?

On her concern about "terrorism," was she concerned about sectarian violence, for which Islam is well-known? Or was she worried about Islamofascists killing her? In either case, she might want to reconsider the assertion that hers is a "religion of peace." Or was she using the term like leftists as a way to trash America's military concern for the Middle East? I'd like to know. Perhaps it is the last and serves to set up her next "concern": Islamophobia. Puh-lease! Aren't Moslems the only ones allowed to go on this pilgrimage? Who there was going to be Islamophobic -- besides maybe her, with her fears of terrorism and all. (And if you believe that, I have a bridge I want to sell you.) This term is almost surely an appeal to left-wing readers for sympathy as it makes absolutely no sense here.

The multicultural tug at the heartstrings of the typical guilty liberal continues in the next paragraph: she expresses the absurd and self-contradictory worries that that she would (a) not be accepted because she is a American and (b) not be accepted due to her "biracial" background. I set aside for the sake of argument my impression that she was probably required not to show much of her face in public while on the pilgrimage. What of her fear of not being accepted because she is as an American citizen? If she really was afraid, what does that say, again, about her religion? If she was worried about "terrorism" (in the non-moonbat sense of the term), she should have remembered that terrorists want people who blend in well in the West. (Recall again: she wouldn't be on the hajj at all unless she's a Moslem!) Remember the kids from Buffalo? Remember John Walker Lindh? Lindh survived unscathed in Afghanistan of all places. He was surrounded by fellow Moslems (terrorists, in fact) all the time, though he was recognizably "American" and white as a sheet to boot. And that brings me to that bit of silliness about being "biracial." If anything, her particular racial mix would have made her stand out much less than Lindh did. This is preposterous. This sounds to me more like it is intended to elicit sympathy from a bunch of Volvo Democrats who will apologize at any opportunity for the sin of being born white..

And finally, there's the question of what she meant by "propaganda." Whose propaganda? Ours? She'd discount it as much as anyone with a modicum of sense would discount anything reported by Dan Rather. Propaganda about Americans from the state-run media in the Arab world? Isn't the big problem with the "Great Satan" that it is non-Moslem? Wouldn't her presence -- as a Moslem -- on the hajj redeem her? Her only legitimate concern would be terrorists, no? But they'd at least want to recruit her. She could join them or play the double agent. This would be a golden opportunity to tip off the CIA upon her return. And what of the "danger" from other Moslems? Again, what does that say about her faith being a "religion of peace." The whole excerpt I quoted above is codswollop intended to gain undeserved sympathy.

As an executive director of a CAIR chapter, Iesa Galloway is, in the most generous interpretation possible, someone who really believes that Islam is a peaceful religion and is trying to put its best face forward to the American people. Her expressed concerns for her own safety ring hollow to me. But if they do, why is she putting them into the article? To portray Moslems sympathetically as a persecuted minority. To do this she has, as we have already seen, used the language of multiculturalism.

As Mark Steyn once pointed out, multiculturalism is not a celebration of diversity, but a suicide cult for the West. The greatest sin of multiculturalism is that it is in essence what Ayn Rand would refer to as a package deal, where two things that differ conceptually are "sold" as if they belong together. Muticulturalism amalgamates goodwill and altruistic (i.e., self-sacrificial), anti-Western policy. In doing so, this ideology takes advantage of the goodwill of most Westerners to sell an anti-Western leftist agenda as part and parcel of the idea that we should live and let live. There is also an additional element. While toleration is in fact a political ideal the multiculturalist attempts to make it into a moral ideal: moral relativism. Never mind that in America, Moslems are in fact free to practice their faith (except for the parts about killing infidels and apostates), we are to evaluate every Moslem tabula rasa, ignoring the many atrocities that have been committed in recent years in the name of that religion, and ignoring the fact that the faith calls for our own servitude or execution. (See below.)

But Galloway is not done. The non-liberal part of her readership will probably react much as I did to the multicultural part of her column -- unless they are so jaded by everything in our mainstream media being tainted with multiculturalism that they ignore it. For this segment of the Chronicle's readership, the religious portion, she shifts to the language of religion.

I was soon on my way halfway around the world to Mecca, the heart of nearly 1.9 billion believers of the one, and, as we believe, only God, the God of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus [emphasis added] and Mohammed.

Of course! She's really one of us! Texas being a fairly religious state, she can segue very nicely into driving this point home.

Over the days, a pattern in the conversations quickly developed. It started with, "Where are you from?" meaning, "What country?" My answer was always "Texas." Then again, "Where are you from?" this time meaning, "What is your origin?"

My answer proudly this time [emphasis added], was again, "Texas."

Next came any one of the following: "How long have you been Muslim?" "Are your parents Muslim?" "Were you born Muslim?" I answer them accordingly: "Fours years." "No." "God willing, they will be guided," and lastly, "Well, brother, all mankind is born in innocence."

So now that she has established herself as a good Texan who believes in the Christian God, she feels safe claiming the moral authority to attack her countrymen as bigots. So she does.

My answers [about life as a Moslem in America] were like an IV that pumped hope into their veins.

I represented hope hope that Islam's true face [emphasis added] can be uncovered despite the current events and media distortions [emphasis added]. Hope, that we as Americans know that Muslims do not hate us. And hope that we do not hate the followers of the true teachings of Islam [emphasis added].

I was more than accepted. All the people I met wanted and almost needed to see someone like me.

Given the surfeit of anti-American propaganda pumped out by despotic governments all over the Middle East, and delivered as sermons by Imams all over the Islamic world (including at the hajj), I can see that many Moslems might be suspicious of America and might benefit from meeting Americans. But many already get to meet Americans daily in Afghantistan and Iraq! In fact, the ones who aren't trying to kill our soldiers get to meet them in much more favorable circumstances than at the business end of a gun. It's too early to tell for certain, but many seem grateful for the fact that we liberated their countries. Hamid Karzai and the man who was famously captured on film kissing a picture of George Bush in Iraq come to mind. So, yes, I can see how some Moslems might benefit from knowing what Americans are really like.

But the question is this: how accurate was Galloway's portrayal of America? I wonder. Her focus on "hate" certainly has heavy multicultural overtones. Well, she brought up hate, so let's look at what "hate" is, shall we? Hatred is an emotional response to something perceived as a threat to something we value. In her piece, Galloway takes the responses of Moslems to her (a fellow Moslem) as representative of how they view Americans (who are not Moslems on the whole) in general. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt for the sake of argument. How might Moslems express this non-hatred? If they accept the words of the Koran literally, they will adhere to the following tenets as reported by Frosty Wooldridge.

It specifically states in the Koran to kill all “Jews and Pagans.” Regarding infidels, Jews, Pagans and non-believers, they are the Muslim's "inveterate enemies." (Sura 4:101) Muslims are to "Arrest them, besiege them and lie in ambush everywhere." (Sura 9:5) They are to "Seize them and put them to death wherever you find them, kill them wherever you find them, seek out the enemies of Islam relentlessly." (Sura 4:90) "Fight them until Islam reigns supreme." (Sura 2:193). "Cut off their heads, and cut off the tips of their fingers." (Sura 8:12)

How am I, as a non-believer, to take this? Am I to be "not hated" only if I convert? I'm sorry, but the best I could do is pretend. So is my subsequent servitude or death an expression of "non-hatred?" Or might a given Moslem "not really believe" this passage of the Koran? There is plenty else like this: which others are to be ignored? This is shaky ground: the penalty in Islam for apostasy is death. Is "non-hatred" by Moslems really all that good a thing? These are serious and legitimate questions. My life and yours, gentle reader, depend upon their answers.

And on the flip side: There is a difference, doctrinaire multiculturalism to the contrary, between tolerance and love. As I mentioned before, tolerance is a political concept: So long as my rights aren't violated, I tolerate the fact that other people in my society do not share my beliefs. This is not the same thing as my moral approval, or love, of those beliefs. When one loves something, one experiences an emotional response to it because he values it. Hatred, the opposite of love, is an emotional response to something that threatens that which one values. The tenets of the Islamic faith I cited above at the very least would prevent me from living my life as I see fit. As far as I am concerned, living according to the dictates of Islam would be worse than being killed outright, the only alternative these tenets offer me. I may tolerate someone who holds such beliefs living in my society, but I hate these beliefs. And that goes for anyone who intends to practice them at the expense of my liberty or life.

Rather than preaching to Americans about tolerance, which we practice daily; or racism, which most of us eschew; or her own well-being, which probably really was safer here than on the hajj; I suggest that Galloway take a look at her own beliefs and how contrary to the principles of our founding fathers they really are. And if she already has, I would ask her to at least be honest about where she stands with respect to America. This is a nation founded in revolt against others telling us what to do. If she is sincere about her desire to practice Islam, "[t]he first meaning [of which] is the total submission to God," then she is not an "American" in anything but the narrowest legal sense of the fact that she has citizenship.

There are doubtless many secularized Moslems who do not wish to kill or convert me, but given the widespread and growing threat of Islamofascism, I have to be suspicious even of these. When Moslems profess to take the Koran literally, they voice a threat to my life and liberty by implication. And when they say they do not, I still have to be suspicious: It is in fact a tenet of the Koran that they can lie to non-Moslems, in "self-defense". What conclusions am I to draw? How can I trust a Moslem and still expect to live as I see fit? These are the kinds of issues people like Iesa Galloway should be addressing, not the supposed religious intolerance and bigotry of Americans. It's time that people like Iesa Galloway quit insulting us and start reforming their troubled religion.

-- CAV

No "Sign of the Chicken" in "Southern Zodiac"

The time crunch intensifies today. If I'm lucky, I might get to spend a decent amount of time blogging tomorrow when this beast of a short proposal is done. Lots of interesting news is afoot, though I've little time to comment on it.

Idiot Hippies, Murderous Thugs Overshadow Inaugural

In the meantime, while our nation swears in its Republican Commander-in-Chief, the Democrats are showing their commitment to offering us a viable alternative by staging silly protests (The woman lighting the flag reminds me a little of Teresa Heinz-Kerry.), conducting lame counter-inaugurals, and holding clueless boycotts. I wish they'd get serious, because our nation's enemies already are. There are a couple of good posts on terrorism today over at Ego, concerning the dirty bomb threat in Boston and Iran's Fatwa against Salman Rushdie. Also, stop by Michelle Malkin's blog. She often does a superb job of keeping an eye on Islamofascists. Today, she provides an interesting look at the goings-on behind the scenes at Homeland Security, discusses the situation in Boston some more, and gives some good news about the detainees at Guantanamo. She also gave me my initial tip-off to the Counterterrorism Blog, a must-read in this time of war. I've blogrolled it so I can check on it daily.

An Amusing Southern Joke

As a Southerner, I reserve the right to make the occasional post about my homeland.

Heh! My use of the term "homeland" should give conniption fits to any blue-staters out there reading this! Those guys are too busy staging anti-war protests to realize this, but they're lucky to have us, as Southerners provide a disproportionate amount of the manpower and bravery of our nation's armed forces. And yes, were I still a Mississippi resident when it came up for a vote, I'd have voted to keep the flag, but that's a post for another day. (Note: The voters kept it by a 65-35% margin. This roughly matches the state's white:black ratio, but despite the article's insinuations, I think there was plenty of "crossover voting", for lack of a better term.) In the interest of disclosure, I am white, but this was not a racial issue to me. (See the Coulter article referenced earlier, but with the proviso that there were additional factors that went into my preference.) And any blue-staters out there can get a glimpse at my views on race here. Unlike Senator Byrd (Guess which blog I spent the most time at today!), I'm no bigot. But I digress....

Something I really like about the South that comes through on this blog is that it has its own regional identity due to its distinctive culture. With this sense of distinctiveness comes a sort of cultural self-awareness and thus the ability to laugh at our culture. We know we look funny through the eyes of the rest of our countrymen, and that fills us with a kind of glee. They may laugh, but they don't know what they're missing! We step back and take a look at ourselves through the eyes of our less-fortunate countrymen, and laugh the knowing laugh of the proud man. (Yes. I know. Southern culture is neither perfect nor homogeneous. But today, I'm focusing on its positive and interesting aspects.)

Without further ado, I received a gag "Southern zodiac" via email from my wife and found it posted here. One last jab at blue-state peaceniks: you'll see no "sign of the chicken" here.

For laughs, my sign is "boiled peanuts," a food that I have found recently canned and sitting on the shelves of a gourmet food store!

I figured I'd be the first Southerner with an Objectivist blog, but Andy beat me to it. (Well, at least he should appreciate the zodiac joke -- unless he's a transplant!) I've blogged a little on Southern culture as it pertains to politics here and here, but I'm a rather atypical Southerner in some ways. It might be interesting some time down the road to test some of the conclusions I drew in those posts by polling the apparently sizable readership at this Southerner's blog.

One interesting atypicality about my background: Though I was raised Catholic -- itself unusual except in parts of Louisiana -- my family was pretty secular. Nominally Protestant, my uncle and his father did not attend church. And before I was an Objectivist, I'd become agnostic after giving religion the benefit of the doubt until college. The day I decided to tell my father I was agnostic, he stole my thunder by telling me he was an atheist! Of course, I am now an atheist, too, but the only professed one in my family. I wonder how common these "secular" families are in the South?

Well, that'll have to be it for today. I've got a couple of interesting things I'm dying to post about, but can't for lack of time.

-- CAV

Allah and Stalin and Christ! Oh My!

Just a few quick thoughts today....

Where's a Daisy Cutter when you Need One?

That was my first thought on seeing images like the one on this page on Fox News this morning and hearing about how security had to be beefed up for all the "peaceful Moslems." The article leads with what sounds like a denunciation of religious violence on the part of a cleric, but the following passage should make you think again.

“The greatest affliction to strike the nation of Islam came from some of its own sons, who were lured by the devil,” he said. “They have called the nation [of Islam, remember] infidel, they have shed protected blood and they have spread vice on earth, with explosions and destruction and killing of innocents.”

He pointedly asked of Muslim youth: “How would you meet God? With innocent blood you shed or helped shed?”

Al-Sheik also said that campaigns were being waged against the people of Islam [emphasis added] — “military campaigns, thought campaigns, economic campaigns, and media campaigns.

“They are all against this religion. The nation was described as a terrorist nation, that we are terrorists and backward,” he said. “Conferences have been held and conspiracies have been woven ... all unjustly and unfairly.”

Al-Sheik urged worshippers to abide the words of God and his prophet and not be “fooled by a civilization known for its weak structure and bad foundation.”

Makes me think of how "peace" really means "the end of Israel" to the "Palestinians". Count me in on any "campaign" against a bunch of people whose stated beliefs give me the "choice" of servitude or death.

If you Can't Install a Puppet, Erect a Statue ...

... to one of the greatest villains of history.

RNC Caves to Social Conservatives?

This is bad news, especially on top of something I've already blogged about here before: that one strain of thought among Democrats is that they should try harder to win the Christian evangelical vote. The Republican plan presented by the new RNC chairman doesn't sound so bad, but then, just as you start thinking that you're reading another "news report" by a sloppy, liberal reporter, the other shoe drops:

As for conservatives, [Ken Mehlman, RNC chairman] said, "When we debate who should sit on the judiciary, we have an opportunity to deepen the GOP by registering to vote men and women who attend church every week but aren't yet registered voters."

Most ominously, the head of the RNC explicitly showed his Bill Bennett-like disdain for the fact that Bush won on the war!

In the text of Mehlman's remarks released by the RNC, he took a veiled shot at Bush rival Sen. John Kerry, saying voters were asked to choose between "victory and vacillation" in the war on terror. But Mehlman deleted the remark [emphasis added] when giving the address.

The secular wing of the Republican party had better wake up, and fast!

Some Updates

For those who may not have noticed, I have recently updated two posts. Hat tip to Andy on the second of these.

-- CAV

And, on a Positive Note, ...

No matter how creative you are about it, it can sometimes be well-nigh impossible to post to your blog when your day job is in science! Today is very busy. I've a load of scientific reading and writing to do tonight, so today's post will point to some good stuff I ran into over lunch.

While I most enjoy writing opinion pieces and polemics, and regard this type of writing as my strong point, my readers cannot live on vinegar alone. (Nor can I, for that matter!) I have noticed on my visits to other Objectivist blogs that many of them include posts about art or about other things they enjoy, or they advertise the finer things through blogads. Of these, I imagine that the first two things will be more occasional here, but perhaps easier to do once I become able to post images. I plan to host blogads at some point as well.

For a change of pace, I'll direct my readers to a couple of posts from other blogs that focus on the positive. The first post is from another blogger who, though not an Objectivist, appreciates the many merits of capitalism.

A Positive Defense of Capitalism

I've been pleasantly surprised by the recent torrent of activity over at The Transhuman Comedy, the science fiction-oriented blog of my friend Raymund. Today, he posted this fun and informative piece about how capitalism (via communications technology) rescued him and another friend from what might have otherwise been a very boring childhood. From the post:

Curtis and I both grew up lower-middle-class in smalltown Missouri in the 1980s. Despite this handicap, by the time we'd graduated high school one or both of us:

* Read science fiction and fantasy classics by Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury, Asimov, Herbert, and Tolkein
* Read "real" literature by Hemingway, Steinbeck, Hawthorne, Joyce, Plath, Camus, Hesse, and Mann
* Watched films by Kubrick; old Twilight Zone episodes; BBC comedies on the local PBS station; and French-language television from Quebec
* Listened to couldn't-hear-it-on-the-radio music ranging from Beethoven symphonies to '60s Rolling Stones, They Might Be Giants, Iron Maiden, and Andreas Vollenweider

This list is not exhaustive; Curtis could probably add to it.

And to think we did all this with the communications technologies of the day! We shouldn't be surprised; although the technology of the '80s seems quaint today, it was remarkably advanced.

The fight for freedom and capitalism cannot be won by arguments alone: people must also realize or remember that the things they value and enjoy are made possible by freedom.

The Real Heroes of the Orange Revolution

I thoroughly my subscription to TIADaily, and in no small measure due to the fact that lots of good news that goes underreported in our major media is highlighted there. On the companion (sampler) blog today appeared the story I was hoping would show up: the story of how members of the SBU, the Ukrainian equivalent to the KGB, actively worked against the recent attempt to throw the election to Viktor Yanukovich. From the entry:

The New York Times, for all of its leftist leanings and the awful stuff secreted onto its editorial pages, can still produce some real blockbusters in its international coverage, which has long been the greatest value the paper offers. Today's piece is one of the best pieces of reporting I've seen in a long time. It presents a previously untold story that has all the high drama of a great spy thriller—yet it is all taken from real life.

Its central message is that pro-Kremlin Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and his political clique failed in their attempt to rig the Ukrainian election because they lost control over "the last guarantor of power: the men with the guns." But they did not merely lose control; a significant number of the "men with guns" were actively working against the vote-riggers—and they threatened active, violent, armed resistance against the imposition of dictatorship. They issued warnings that "if [Interior] ministry troops came to Kiev, the army and security services would defend civilians," and that a crackdown would lead to bloodshed and civil war because the "demonstrators would resist." It was the threat of force in resistance to tyranny that broke the attempt to entrench a Kremlin-backed dictatorship in Ukraine.

The piece shows, in a positive way how the use of force can be a good thing: when it is used to defend individual rights. Be sure to read the story at the link while it's hot. The Grey Lady likes to take things off the free internet after a certain amount of time.

-- CAV

Jonesin'

First, a Few Loose Ends...

Next Stop, Iran? Saturday, I blogged on Norman Podhoretz's commentary on the "War against World War IV," and wondered about Iran,

Why haven't we already destroyed Iran's capability to make nuclear weaponry? Is Bush so brain-dead that he thinks diplomatic efforts are worth even so much as a hill of beans? Or is he buying time or hoping to catch the theocracy off-guard?

Well, via Ego and Instapundit, I see that we may well be getting ready to fix their little red explosive-laden wagon! See Seymour M. Hersh's New Yorker article on "The Coming Wars." The article reiterates the idea that Iraq is just part of the big picture. As Glenn Reynolds said, "I hope that this is true." From the article:

“This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah—we’ve got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism.”

Damage Control by Amputation? Last Saturday, I blogged on my annoyance with ARI for not linking their clarification of their PR blunder concerning aid to tsunami victims to the original botched statement. Apparently, the original statement, which I maintain should have provided a link directly to the clarification (or better, should have included it as it does on this non-ARI site) is no longer posted at ARI. It has instead been replaced by a statement concerning our conduct of the war in Iraq! (The term "tsunami" gets two instances of the clarification only in their site search engine.) I know they received my email, because I'm now on a mailing list. Maybe I should have told them that I occasionally donate.

Submarine Captain in the Crosshairs: The headline says it all: "Old charts partly to blame in U.S. nuclear sub collision." From the article:

Outdated charts were partially [emphasis added] at fault for the undersea grounding of a U.S. nuclear submarine last weekend, according to a U.S. agency that analyzes spy satellite imagery and produces maps and charts for the Defense Department.

Officials at the Bethesda, Md.-based National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency said Saturday the main chart likely used by the USS San Francisco didn't reveal any obstacle anywhere near where the boat struck on the side of an apparent mountain in the Pacific Ocean during underwater operations Jan. 8 about 350 miles south of Guam.

Key word: partially. My guess is that the captain will take the fall for operating the boat too fast, given the age of the chart. And if he does, I'd figure on the Navigator and the Officer of the Deck (the officer who was in charge of the ship at the time of the mishap) as well. Update Other submariners show drydock pics, comment from this link.

Helping out a Fellow Blogger

LaShawn Barber is conducting some kind of research on blogging. I've decided to participate, and will post her questions and my answers here.

1) How long have you been blogging? Since mid-October 2004. As of now, that's almost exactly 3 months

2) Do you believe you’re addicted to blogging? Please explain, and be honest. It is habit-forming, I must confess. (If I decide to use your response, I may have follow-up questions.) Addicted? Heavens no! I blog for medicinal purposes only!

More to the point, I think it is habit-forming, but in my case, I'm also doing it to practice writing opinion pieces and to explore whether opinion writing as a career might be good for me. As a result, while I enjoy it most of the time, I'd say that about a fifth of the time I basically have to force myself to do it.

3) Have you ever taken a hiatus? If so, for what reason and how long? Yes. I refrained from blogging for something like a week in December while my wife and I were visiting relatives for Christmas. Part of the reason for this was that it would have been inconvenient at best to blog during that trip.

4) Have you ever thought of giving up your blog? Why or why not? No! I like a lot of what I've written. Also, the chance to vent here helps me maintain a good emotional balance.

-- CAV

Updates

2-6-05: Added link to San Fran update.

Hate: An Emotion, not a Crime

Correction: The murder as yet remains unsolved.

Michelle Malkin has been thoroughly covering the recent slayings of an entire Egyptian family who were Coptic Orthodox Christians. According to the post referenced above, the family may have been killed by practicioners of the "religion of peace" after its head, Hossam Armanious, had engaged Moslems in angry disputes over religion on an internet site. Thus the murders may have been terrorist attacks.

One might correctly make the point that it is a complete waste of time to discuss matters of faith since all standards of proof and evidence are out the window. However, that in no way would abridge Mr. Armanious's freedom of speech. If someone was offended by something Armanious said, his proper responses would include (a) ignoring Armanious, (b) complaining about him to the owners of the web site, (c) boycotting the site altogether, or (d) any combination of a, b, or c. Maybe I should check again, but I didn't see an "(e) use it as an excuse to kill him and his whole family."

I will admit that for a moment, even I was tempted to say, "He was asking for it." But then I remembered something: This is America. Armanious has the inalienable right to proseletyze all he wants without having so much as a hair on his head harmed. He could have made a complete ass of himself for all I know, but unless what he did actually harmed someone, it was his right to do so.

I will refrain -- for reasons I'll get into momentarily -- from using the term "hate crime" to describe these attacks even if they are due to religious motivations. But why would someone do this? It would certainly be yet another pathetic example on the part of Islamofascists of something I posted about a while back.

A religious fanatic like Osama bin Laden is not a self-confident man. For the religious fanatic, opinions that differ from his will ... shake [the] very foundations of his own worldview. [D]ispassionate inquiry and weighing of evidence have no place to the man blinded by faith... [H]e will seek to assuage his fear by removing its object -- the dissenting opinion. He will do this even if it means murdering a human being -- destroying a unique life, an entire universe, in the process.

This is the real, ugly little motive behind this kind of killing. But that motive, as morally wrong as it is, is not illegal: Acting upon it to commit a murder would be illegal. And while I understand the outrage expressed by Malkin in her use of the term "hate crime" to describe these attacks, I would urge her not to use that term to describe them. Why? Because, as Tammy Bruce points out in her book, The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds:

The line between wanting to change society for the better and enforcing submission to a particular way of thinking can be a fine one. After all, if you want to change society, you have to decide what part of society needs fixing. Both sides of the political spectrum have come to their own conclusions in that regard, but the Left's efforts to eradicate injustice and discrimination have led it down an extraordinary road: the actual criminalization of ... what we think. ... That's what hate crime legislation is all about. (pp. 45-46)

I regard the Moslem faith as the ideology most nearly the opposite to that which man needs to live a proper and fulfilling life. Nevertheless, so long as an adherent does not, as Jefferson would say, "pick my pocket or break my leg," he has the right to poison his own mind with Islam as much as he wants. The fact that a crime has been committed because of the criminal's belief system may indeed be due to the fact that said belief system is evil. But it doesn't make the crime any worse than any other murder. A murder committed in Allah's name is neither more nor less evil than a murder committed for any other reason. To expand upon this point, I quote Bruce again:

Let's go back to our carjacker/grocery clerk scenario. This time, let's say that both of the victims are gay. The grocery-store clerk, as before, kills his victim because he hates gay people. In the case of the carjacking, the guy wants the woman's car, she's in the way and represents everything he hates (he's poor and disenfanchised, she is not), so he hates her and kills her. Whereas the grocery store clerk is still guilty of a hate crime, the carjacker is not, despite the fact that they both killed a gay woman. The actions were the same. The only difference is what the person was thinking when he committed the crime. (p. 46)

I would hope that Malkin's use of the term "hate crime" is riteous indignation, but coming from such a prominent journalist, it carries the following risk. It introduces the idea into the public discourse that using hate crime legislation against terrorists is an acceptable way to deal with the threat they pose. In this time of war, our government should be especially aware of the activities of Moslems, should prosecute all their crimes to the fullest extent of the law, and should remove the many politically correct barriers between that law and these individuals. This is not simply because they are Moslems, but because we are at war with Islamofascists, and, oddly enough, they're all Moslem! Aside from measures we must take because we are at war, this kind of vigilance also involves legitimate reforms that may be much more difficult to undertake than quick expedients like making terrorism or Islamofascism a "hate crime."

We have already made a mistake by introducing the dangerous concept of "hate crimes" into our legal system. But if we yield to the temptation to use this legislation as a weapon -- even against Islamofascist fanatics -- the consequences will come home to roost. If killing in the name of Islam makes some murders worse than other murders, which ideology will be outlawed next? And conversely, which murders will become "more OK" than others? If there's one thing we should all remember on MLK Day, it is the principle of equal treatment under the law.

Any use of "hate crime" legislation in this war would be just as foolhardy as unleashing an incurable plague: it may kill the enemy first, but then it will turn around and kill us. The only thing we should do with hate crime legislation is this: Abolish it.

-- CAV

Update

1-18-05: (1) Corrected post. The murder sure sounds like it could be a terrorist attack, but since there's a fat reward for information, we don't know that yet. Not to excuse myself for jumping to conclusions, but I guess we can chalk up another reason not to use a sensationalist title like "hate crime" to describe a murder that is under investigation. (2) Clarified why introducing the term "hate crime" into the public discourse is a bad idea.