This is a grand, great nation. Do not blame it if you choose not to live up to its standards.

TorontoSun.com - Michael Coren - Not black and white

The reason is that black children do extraordinarily badly in our education system. Shock. Horror. Never mention race unless it is to play the guilt game and apologize for wrongs committed centuries ago or to claim that every problem within the black community is the fault of white people.

But the facts are open and obvious. And they differ little from the black experience in the United States or United Kingdom. Before the usual zealots complain that this is terribly racist or just a colossal lie, the people who are making these statements are themselves black. They see exclusively black schools as a way to deal with the problem.

What they fail to recognize is that the problem is not within the schools. The problem is within the black community. Canadian public schools offer a good, fair and colour-blind education to every child in this country. Teachers are not racist and if anything the trend of teaching and teaching theory is acutely liberal and leads people to bend over backwards, or leftwards, to accommodate all minorities and reject the host culture.

Nor can we blame the old regular of poverty for the apparent failings of one particular community. There are poorer ethnic groups whose members do well in schools and even children with English as a second or third language who manage to cope and sometimes excel.

The fundamental, of course, is the existence of a nuturing family. Meaning a mother and a father who value education, value family and support and encourage their children. It is insulting to assume that no such units exist in black Canada, but realistic to ask why they seem so relatively rare.

If these schools are created, the perception will be that they are failing schools, attended by kids who couldn't make it in the mainstream system. The idea that graduates will be welcomed by employers and universities is ludicrous.

There is also the danger that their so-called "Afro-centrism" becomes a euphemism for rejecting white culture and rejecting Canada. Less than 40 years ago Irish Catholics were told they need not apply for all sorts of jobs and there were university quotas to restrict the number of Jewish students. Cry me a river for kids who live in a country with free health care, social security, welfare democracy and freedom. This is a grand, great nation. Do not blame it if you choose not to live up to its standards.

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Guantánamo by the Numbers

Guantánamo by the Numbers - New York Times

Number of “high-value detainees” now at Guantánamo: 15

Approximate percentage of detainees found to have committed “hostile acts” against the United States or coalition forces before detention: 53

Approximate number of countries of which detainees are citizens: 40

Most represented countries at Guantánamo: Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen

Cost of building Guantánamo high-security detention facilities: about $54 million

Estimated annual cost of operating Guantánamo: $90 million to $118 million

Cost of “expeditionary legal complex” for the military commission (under construction): $10 million to $12 million

Number of books in the Guantánamo detention library: 5,143

Number of Korans issued to detainees from January 2002 to June 2005: more than 1,600

Number of daily calories per detainee: Up to 4,200, including halal meat

Average weight gain per detainee: 20 pounds

Number of pills dispensed per day: 1,000, to 200-300 detainees

Number of apparent suicides: 4

Number of apparent suicide attempts: 41, by 25 detainees (as of May 2006)

Number of detainee assaults on guards using “bodily fluids”: more than 400

Date of first visit to Guantánamo by the International Committee of the Red Cross: Jan. 18, 2002

Approximate number of visits by lawyers to Guantánamo detainees so far this year: 1,100

Month of first habeas corpus petition filed to challenge detention at Guantánamo: January 2002

Number of habeas corpus petitions filed in federal courts on behalf of detainees: roughly 300

Number of detainees designated by the president as “eligible” for trial by military commission: 14

Number actually charged with crimes (for example, murder and material support for terrorism): 10

Number of pending cases: 3

Number of convictions: 1 (an Australian who pleaded guilty to material support of terrorism and was sentenced to nine months of confinement in his home country)

Estimated number of detainees who may be charged in the future: 80

Month of first release of a detainee: May 2002 (one detainee repatriated to Afghanistan because of an “emotional breakdown”)

Approximate number of detainees released: 445

Approximate number of current detainees found eligible for transfer or release: 70

Countries to which Guantánamo detainees have been transferred: Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, Yemen

Most recent announced transfer of detainees from Guantánamo: Nov. 4 (eight to Afghanistan, three to Jordan)

Personal items provided to detainees upon departure: a Koran, a denim jacket, a white T-shirt, a pair of blue jeans, high-top sneakers, a gym bag of toiletries and a pillow and blanket for the flight home

Number of detainees said by Pentagon to have resumed hostile activities against the United States after release: at least 30

Number of United States senators who voted in favor of a nonbinding resolution that Guantánamo detainees “should not be released into American society, nor should they be transferred stateside into facilities in American communities and neighborhoods”: 94

Number of bills in Congress calling for the closing of Guantánamo: 3

Number of members of the House of Representatives who signed a letter to President Bush in June 2007 urging him to close Guantánamo and move the detainees to military prisons in the United States: 145

Number of Republicans who signed the letter: 1

Democratic presidential candidates who are on record supporting closing Guantánamo: 8

Republican presidential candidates who are: 2 (John McCain and Ron Paul)

Closest American allies that have called for Guantánamo’s closing: Britain, France, Germany

Next scheduled legal test of the Guantánamo system: Boumediene v. Bush, a challenge to the denial of habeas corpus, set for argument before the Supreme Court on Dec. 5

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Is It "UnAmerican" To Question Suspicious Airline Passengers?

Pajamas Media: Is It "UnAmerican" To Question Suspicious Airline Passengers? The New Racial Profiling Lawsuits

“There are some groups out there pushing the limits to reap the rewards of what happened on 9/11,” Tony Loeks told PJM in an interview. “They behave in a non-violent but suspicious manner to get themselves pulled off the aircraft with the result being a civil suit against the airline.”

An example of what may have possibly been such an attempt - a separate incident involving a group of 12, suspicious-acting, Arabic-speaking men that took place on Sun Country Airlines Flight 274, traveling from Washington to Minnesota on June 27. Two passengers on that flight had contacted me about the men’s threatening behavior and asked me to investigate. At first, TSA wouldn’t confirm that the incident even happened. Later they acknowledged that it did, but refused to comment.

Loeks, the affable Director of Safety and Security at Sun Country Airlines, by contrast, was willing to talk, explaining how important safety and security is to Sun Country, and “that goes for all the passengers as well.”

When thinking about airport security, it’s easy to conjure images of x-ray and bomb detection machines, but security, is, as Loeks explained, and as Webster’s defines, “being free from danger or threat.” So what happens when passengers feel threatened? Therein lies the airlines’ conundrum.

Based on passenger accounts, the 12 Middle Eastern men on Sun Country Flight 274 appeared to be going out of their way to call attention to their aberrant, in-flight behavior. One passenger explained: “They were so many of them and they were seated all over the plane. They acted like college kids except they were too old. They stood up in unison, kept changing seats, and kept passing cellular phones. They were so disruptive. No one else was being obnoxious like they were. This was totally out-of-line behavior. They were playing musical chairs. The flight attendant kept telling them to sit in their seats. But every time [the flight attendant] was out of eyesight, they were at it again.”

During the flight, this passenger debated whether or not to tell the flight attendant further details of the men’s behavior. “But then one of the men pulled out a video camera, a big camcorder, with a big mike. The flight attendant told him to put it away. He did, until she was gone. Then he pulled it back out and started video taping all the passengers on the plane. It was intimidating. Now, there was no chance of me saying anything. These guys had me on tape.”

The passenger’s mother, who was also on the plane, described in a separate interview what she witnessed in-flight. “What the men were doing was very intimidating, especially with that video camera. I felt scared. They were loud and boisterous. I thought about saying something to the flight attendant. But we live in Minnesota and are aware of the imam’s lawsuit. It’s a little bit scary, thinking you can get sued for giving information like this.” (At the time of the flight, lawyers for six Muslim clerics, removed from an airline for suspicious behavior, had named airline passengers in their well-publicized, racial profiling suit against U.S Airways, and the Minnesota airport authorities.)

The first passenger said that what disturbed her most was what she saw after the flight landed. She was waiting at the baggage claim alongside the men. “They scared a lot of us on the plane. One girl was crying. And then, when we got to the baggage claim, the men’s wives appeared, in their headscarves and with their kids. I thought, ‘Oh, my God? These guys have kids. How can men who have their own children to think about intentionally scare people like that? On the flight, I was with my kids.”

The answer appears to be because they can. There is no passenger recourse for being intimidated, spooked or threatened by a group of obnoxious men—hailing from the Middle East, America, or anywhere else. So far, there have been no civil lawsuits.

“We often get the same canned response..” Loeks said. “I do remember this one situation about two months prior to the JFK terror plot. There’s a long taxi out of JFK. We had a Middle Eastern passenger using his cell phone camera to take pictures of the airport grounds. During the taxi portion of the flight, cell phones must be off - his wasn’t. So we reported to TSA. Barely a response. Well, after the foiled plot, they were very interested in this individual, the flight and the date.”

Which brings us back to the six Arabs and their lawsuit currently in the headlines. These were six Iraqi military contractors hired by the U.S. Army to teach Marines about Iraqi culture and etiquette. Six professionals returning to Detroit on American Airlines flight 590 on August 28. Six grown men who claim they were “humiliated,” “violated,” and “mortified” for being questioned by airport officials at Lindberg Airport for one hour. There were no handcuffs involved. No law enforcement officers with guns.

David Al-Watan, Talal Cholagh, Ali Alzerej, Hassan Alzerej, Hussein Alsalih and Mohammad Al-Saedy are suing American Airlines in U.S. District Court for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The men’s lawyer, Lawrence Garcia of Allen Brothers Attorneys & Counselors PLLC, says what the airline did to them was “un-American.”
Another passenger on the plane, a mother traveling alone with her two young kids, felt uncomfortable by the men’s behavior during boarding procedures and asked, without fanfare, to be let off the plane. Media reports said she’d “overreacted.” To this end, Leah Robbins spoke to the press, “How can you overreact when it’s your children?” she told the San Diego Union Tribune. American Airlines officials decided to ask the men a few questions. Since when is it un-American to clarify the facts?

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A Perfect Storm of Evil

Maggie's Notebook: A Perfect Storm of Evil

Respect for authority has been replaced by demands for ever-increasing public services, while fewer and fewer adults are willing to take responsibility for themselves and their families. The principled leader – always a scarce commodity – is today on the verge of extinction. Politics has degenerated to little more than a vote auction for promised public giveaways. There have always been charlatans in politics, but in today’s culture, being a liar is “smart.” The media are in awe of politicians adept at “crafting a message” that will “resonate” with voters. They discuss without irony how this or that candidate has to “moderate” his/her position to appeal to this or that group. They focus exclusively on image – and seem not to understand that there is no relying on someone whose word is not reliable. But if you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything. As this moral degeneracy has spread throughout the population, a political party has arisen that both helped to create and concurrently take advantage of it: the Democrat Party. And hiding within that party for many years has been a malevolent, organized underground that has used it as a pathway to power.

The goals and tactics of the international communist movement have never changed. But now the movement is peopled to a great extent by Neocommunists who disavow membership in the party, while still working actively to accomplish its goals. George Soros is a major player in that movement, and his organizations and money have been behind much of the Democrats’ outrageous initiatives in recent years: the horrid immigration bill defeated last spring, the national network of vote registration organizations (that have been convicted of voter fraud – including massive fake registrations, voter intimidation and destruction of republican vote registrations,) the “Global Warming” scam, the anti-war movement and so many others. Bill and Hillary Clinton are also willing participants in that movement. Democrat legislators, like Henry Waxman, Barbara Boxer, Patrick Leahy, Charles Schumer and many more, are “Democrat” in name only. They wouldn’t know the “mainstream” if they were drowning in it. These people have nothing, repeat, nothing to recommend them but they all have one thing in common: an ego so titanic they believe they are entitled to do literally anything. People view the increasing radicalism of our elected leaders with blasé indifference. As a society we have lost our moral anchors. Thus we cannot see the treachery ahead. A perfect storm is building. Republicans can’t fight off the relentless attacks being waged by the Democrats’ media allies. The American people have become too complacent and ill-informed to see that, while some Republicans certainly are no saints, the Democrats are institutionally corrupt. As Tom Delay told Matt Lauer of NBC “There are scandals that need to be addressed. Republicans address them, Democrats re-elect them.”

People have said that 2008 may be the most important election in our nation’s history. That is an understatement. If Democrats sweep both houses with large majorities, as it appears they might, while Hillary Clinton takes the presidency, what are the likely consequences for our constitutional republic? Will we have to rely on Congressional Democrats to reign her in? Are you kidding? Given the Clintons’ treacherous legacy, do you think she, or her institutionally corrupt Party, is above anything? I don’t.

We are at a crossroads. Our national conscience has degenerated to the point that we only dimly recognize our predicament. Finally, and too late, the horrible ramifications of our apathy will be revealed. We will indeed be punished by our various sins of self-absorbed narcissism, of foolish pride – of worshipping false idols. We are not all guilty of these sins, of course. But Burke said: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Lenin said that the organized minority will beat the disorganized majority every time. The Left is very organized, as we have seen repeatedly. Unfortunately, unless we get our collective act together, the Neocommunists who define American political and popular culture will take the rest of us down with them. The Left will prove once again that you don’t need good ideas, just good organization and a ruthless willingness to do whatever is necessary to win. People who believe in the United States of America, people who believe in real justice, in real freedom, We The People, must organize to defeat them. And we must do it NOW. We may not have another chance.

Hattip to OE

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The 'Torture' Fraud of the Left

"Torture" is one of many current topics of significance that have been abandoned to the left. Leftist commentators have been allowed to set the terms, make the definitions, and generally run the argument without much in the way of serious opposition or debate.

"Torture" is probably the most egregious of these cases. That's the explanation for the sneer quotes. Because, quite simply, in much of the debate over "torture", we're not talking about actual torture at all. We're talking about rough treatment, harshness, or coercion.

The American left has defined these upward until they mean the same thing as torture, all as a part of their efforts to undermine the War on Terror in general. The core of this stance is the assertion that a slap on the head, several days without sleep, or hearing Rage Against the Machine played at full volume is fully the equivalent of torture in the classic sense. (Well... maybe we should reconsider that last....)

Of course, it's no such thing. Torture is easily defined as physical assault carried out over a prolonged period against a victim under complete control and holding the possibility of permanent physical or psychic damage. Official legal terminology contains the proviso that torture consists of acts that "revolt the conscience" We can also add, by way of Dashiell Hammett, that such actions must have "threat of death behind them". If they contain these elements, they are torture. If not, they're something less. Not necessarily something justifiable or commendable, but not torture either.

The left has succeeded, through a relentless media campaign (is there any other kind?) in obscuring this distinction. According to the latest criteria, torture is anything unpleasant that occurs to a prisoner while in American custody. (Overseas it's different. It's very, very difficult -- almost impossible, in fact -- for any developing or left-of-center regime to commit torture, no matter what they do to their prisoners. Unless, as in the rendition uproar, the U.S. is somehow involved.)

Needless to say, none of the foregoing must be taken as approval of torture or any other kind of brutality. But that's just the point: the left has drawn a vicious cartoon in which every individual involved in fighting the Jihadis from the Oval office on down is being portrayed as the equivalent of the Abu Ghraib guards: halfwit knuckle-draggers capable of going out of control without warning. This can endanger us in any number of ways - encouraging officials to back off when they should bear down, to hesitate when they should strike.

It's no news that the Bush Administration has done a horrible job of selling itself and its policies. Bush, being a Texan, evidently believes that accomplishments speak for themselves. But the great world, unfortunately, is not Texas. If you don't create your own narrative, lay down your own version of events, someone else is going to do it for you. And you probably will not like the results.

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David Horowitz discusses "Liberal Arts" on Glenn Beck

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Phyllis Chesler's fighting words.

Chesler Chronicles: An American Dissident's Fighting Words. My Speech at Columbia on 10/24/07

It is time to take the campus back so that the rights of “free speech” and “academic freedom” also apply to those who tell the truth about Islam and who espouse minority and dissident intellectual points of view. Such rights also belong to those of us who are pro-American and pro-Israel and not only to those who demonize the West and valorize Islamist misogyny, death-cult terrorism, and Wahabi and Salafi fundamentalism.

Telling the truth about Islam is, apparently, “provocative.” One risks everything for doing so. In my opinion, one risks even more for failing to do so.

No western academic is supposed to criticize anything that a formerly colonized man of color does—including gang-rape or stone women of color to death. Nor can he or she focus on the savage persecution of homosexuals or on the epidemic of homosexual pederasty in the Islamic world; or on the persecution of heroic Muslim and ex-Muslim intellectuals and human rights activists.

Muslim-on-Muslim homicide and genocide are also “unmentionables.” Any western academic who dares discuss such tabooed subjects will be defamed as a “racist” and “colonialist.” Fear of this allegation is so great that false concerns about racism have inevitably trumped all feminist concerns about sexism. This is the new McCarthyism and it is coming to us from the left.

In the early 1960s, I was held captive in Kabul, Afghanistan, in fairly posh purdah. I was a young bride. I escaped, I survived, I learned a thing or two. I write about this in The Death of Feminism which describes Islamic gender apartheid both way back then and now, as it is penetrating the West.

For example, I learned that what characterizes Islam (not Islamism) is mainly indigenous to the culture, the region, and the religion and is not necessarily caused by Western imperialism, colonialism, or capitalism.

n the early 1970s, American imperialism and Israeli policies of self-defense did not force Bangladeshi Muslims to murder their own women for the crime of having been raped by enemy Muslim soldiers.

In the 1980s, when Iranian village mullahs ordered that women be lynched, the villagers did not stone their daughters, mothers, and sisters because America had, in the past, interfered with Iranian politics.

No American or European oil company ordered the men of Saudi Arabia to prohibit Saudi women from driving, or from going out without a male escort, nor did they order the be-heading of a Saudi Princess for daring to choose a love match.

No Israeli law forced Palestinians to honor-murder their women, beat their wives and daughters, or to force-veil women against their will. Only Hamas did that.

Western feminists and pro-woman academics must understand that like women everywhere, Arab and Muslim women have internalized their culture’s views of women. Therefore, like men, some women will justify wife-beating, purdah, polygamy, veiling, and female genital mutilation. Thus, just because Muslim women can be trotted out to support Islamic Gender Apartheid, does not necessarily mean that their words on such subjects are any more inviolate than those of their male counterparts.

Pro-Islamists are perfectly free to criticize, even to demonize the West in the West, because they live in a democracy where academic freedom and free speech are (still) taken seriously. Were they to dare criticize the barbarism, misogyny, and despotism of Third World countries, were they to do so in Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Bangladesh or Saudi Arabia (to name only a few such countries), they would be in serious danger of being shot to death in her own home, as happened recently to an Afghan woman journalist, or of being imprisoned, tortured, and murdered. This has happened to many Muslim dissidents and feminists.

Western feminist academics have now become allied with Islamists—against Muslim and ex-Muslim women and against their own feminist principles. Now is the time for western intellectuals who claim to be antiracists or committed to human and women’s rights to stand with Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents. To do so, requires that we adopt a universal standard of human rights and abandon our loyalty to multicultural relativism which justifies, even romanticizes, indigenous barbarism, totalitarian terrorism and the persecution of women, religious minorities, homosexuals, and intellectuals.

Our abject refusal to judge between civilization and barbarism, and between enlightened rationalism and theocratic fundamentalism endangers and condemns the victims of Islamic tyranny even further.

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Hirsi Ali: "The Trouble is the West"

Reason Magazine - 'The Trouble Is the West'

Reason: But do you feel at all uncomfortable with that heavy emphasis on religion in American public life?

Hirsi Ali: Yes. And the good thing is—and that’s what I’ve tried to tell all my European friends—I’m allowed to say so.
....
I accept that there are multitudes seeking God, seeking meaning, and so on, but if they reject atheism, I would rather they became modern-day Catholics or Jews than that they became Muslims. Because my Catholic and Jewish colleagues are fine. The concept of God in Jewish orthodoxy is one where you’re having constant quarrels with God. Where I come from, in Islam, the only concept of God is you submit to Him and you obey His commands, no quarreling allowed. Quarreling or even asking questions means you raise yourself to the same level as Him, and in Islam that’s the worst sin you can commit. Jews should be proselytizing about a God that you can quarrel with. Catholics should be proselytizing about a God who is love, who represents a hereafter where there’s no hell, who wants you to lead a life where you can confess your sins and feel much better afterwards. Those are lovely concepts of God. They can’t compare to the fire-breathing Allah who inspires jihadism and totalitarianism.

Reason: Should we acknowledge that organized religion has sometimes sparked precisely the kinds of emancipation movements that could lift Islam into modern times? Slavery in the United States ended in part because of opposition by prominent church members and the communities they galvanized. The Polish Catholic Church helped defeat the Jaruzelski puppet regime. Do you think Islam could bring about similar social and political changes?

Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.

Reason: Don’t you mean defeating radical Islam?

Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace.

Reason: We have to crush the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, “defeat Islam”?

Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.” There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.

Reason: Militarily?

Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.

Reason: Are we really heading toward anything so ominous?

Hirsi Ali: I think that’s where we’re heading. We’re heading there because the West has been in denial for a long time. It did not respond to the signals that were smaller and easier to take care of. Now we have some choices to make. This is a dilemma: Western civilization is a celebration of life—everybody’s life, even your enemy’s life. So how can you be true to that morality and at the same time defend yourself against a very powerful enemy that seeks to destroy you?

Reason: George Bush, not the most conciliatory person in the world, has said on plenty of occasions that we are not at war with Islam.

Hirsi Ali: If the most powerful man in the West talks like that, then, without intending to, he’s making radical Muslims think they’ve already won. There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it.
...
Reason: I want my government to protest the Rushdie fatwa. I’m not so sure they ought to diplomatically engage some idiots burning a piece of cloth or a straw figure in the streets of Islamabad. Isn’t there a huge difference between the two?

Hirsi Ali: It’s not just a piece of cloth. It’s a symbol. In a tribal mind-set, if I’m allowed to take something and get away with it, I’ll come back and take some more. In fact, I’ll come and take the whole place, especially since it’s my holy obligation to spread Islam to the outskirts of the earth and I know I’ll be rewarded in heaven. At that point, I’ve only done my religious obligation while you’re still sitting there rationalizing that your own flag is a piece of cloth.

We have to get serious about this. The Egyptian dictatorship would not allow many radical imams to preach in Cairo, but they’re free to preach in giant mosques in London. Why do we allow it?

Reason: You’re in favor of civil liberties, but applied selectively?

Hirsi Ali: No. Asking whether radical preachers ought to be allowed to operate is not hostile to the idea of civil liberties; it’s an attempt to save civil liberties. A nation like this one is based on civil liberties, and we shouldn’t allow any serious threat to them. So Muslim schools in the West, some of which are institutions of fascism that teach innocent kids that Jews are pigs and monkeys—I would say in order to preserve civil liberties, don’t allow such schools.

Reason: Having lived in the United States for about a year now, do you find that Muslims in the United States have by and large integrated better here than they have in Europe?

Hirsi Ali: Since I moved here, I’ve spent most of my time in airports, in airplanes, in waiting rooms, in hotels, doing promotion for Infidel all over the world, so the amount of time I’ve actually lived in the U.S. is very small. But yes, I have the impression that Muslims in the United States are far more integrated than Muslims in Europe. Of course, being assimilated doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t be a jihadist, but the likelihood of Muslims turning radical here seems lower than in Europe.

For one thing, America doesn’t really have a welfare system. Mohammed Bouyeri had all day long to plot the murder of Theo van Gogh. American Muslims have to get a job. What pushes people who come to America to assimilate is that it’s expected of them. And people are not mollycoddled by the government.

There’s a lot of white guilt in America, but it’s directed toward black Americans and native Indians, not toward Muslims and other immigrants. People come from China, Vietnam, and all kinds of Muslim countries. To the average American, they’re all fellow immigrants.

The white guilt in Germany and Holland and the U.K. is very different. It has to do with colonialism. It has to do with Dutch emigrants having spread apartheid in South Africa. It has to do with the Holocaust. So the mind-set toward immigrants in Europe is far more complex than here. Europeans are more reticent about saying no to immigrants.

And by and large, Muslim immigrants in Europe do not come with the intention to assimilate. They come with the intention to work, earn some money, and go back. That’s how the first wave of immigrants in the Netherlands was perceived: They would just come to work and then they’d go away. The newer generations that have followed are coming not so much to work and more to reap the benefits of the welfare state. Again, assimilation is not really on their minds.
...
Without passing any moral judgment, those are the differences between the two places.

Reason: Tolerance is probably the most powerful word there is in the Netherlands. No other word encapsulates better what the Dutch believe really defines them. That makes it very easy for people to say that when they’re being criticized, they’re not being tolerated—and from there it’s only a small step to saying they’re being discriminated against or they’re the victims of Islamophobia or racism or what have you.

Hirsi Ali: We have to revert to the original meaning of the term tolerance. It meant you agreed to disagree without violence. It meant critical self-reflection. It meant not tolerating the intolerant. It also came to mean a very high level of personal freedom.

Then the Muslims arrived, and they hadn’t grown up with that understanding of tolerance. In short order, tolerance was now defined by multiculturalism, the idea that all cultures and religions are equal. Expectations were created among the Muslim population. They were told they could preserve their own culture, their own religion. The vocabulary was quickly established that if you criticize someone of color, you’re a racist, and if you criticize Islam, you’re an Islamophobe.

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Frogs and boiling water.

Family Security Matters

They say that if you place a frog in a pot of water and begin to heat the pot, the frog will boil to death without even realizing it. Conversely, if you tried to throw a frog into a pot of already boiling water, the frog would make a quick exit. Now that I have sufficiently terrified my animal rights friends, let me place a much deeper context to the above metaphor.

Common Sense: Survival Fever

What all of these situations have in common is the notion that it is common sense to deal directly and effectively with trouble and issues as soon as one can to avoid things getting worse and innocent people being harmed. It is not, however, common sense to simply ignore the problem, hoping that it magically goes away. Neither is it common sense to be more concerned with offending people than solving the problem itself. If my neighbor is bothering my children, for example, one would assume that it is far more effective, rational and proactive to speak to my neighbor about the problem and, if that does not work, either seek help from the authorities or consider moving if necessary.

In this context, it makes no sense and is quite foolish (if not infantile) to do nothing out of fear of upsetting or offending the offender. If my neighbor is creating an unpleasant odor in his backyard, my best bet is to speak to him directly about the problem or, if that might not be a safe thing to do, consider having the police do so. Only a meek imbecile would just suffer the odor out of fear of getting his neighbor worked up or hot and bothered.

Political Correctness: The Anti-Common Sense

Unless you have been in hibernation most of your life, you are very aware of the absurd deference presently paid to political correctness in our society. People now spend so much time and effort trying not to offend certain groups that they have effectively surrendered their own right to exercise common sense.

In an effort to avoid offending some people who were clearly wrong, the interests of a far greater and much more innocent population were trampled upon. So much for common sense and political correctness.

The illegal immigration problem is a red hot issue today, but all we see is a distortion and corruption of common sense surrounding this topic. There is evidence that illegal immigrants are less susceptible to health and other controls and are thus partially responsible for exposing our population to previously minimized illnesses such as tuberculosis.

There is also evidence that many illegal aliens commit numerous serious crimes and, in fact, are proportionately more responsible for such crimes than the general population. That is not to say, of course, that all illegal immigrants are deadly ill or criminals. What is obvious, however, is that there is a higher incidence of serious health problems, illnesses and criminal activity among illegal aliens than the general population. Common sense dictates that such a problem should be recognized, investigated and dealt with proactively and effectively. Common sense, however, is the oil to political correctness’s water.

Conclusion

This nation was founded by individuals who confronted issues and problems directly and effectively. There was neither time nor patience for walking on eggs in the frontier. We speak of freedom of expression as a hallmark of this nation, yet many of us spend half our time worrying more about how others will perceive what we say or do than whether what we say or do is consistent with what made America great in the first place.

It makes little sense to ignore a fever or pain in the interest of avoiding offending others. One has a primary responsibility to one’s own health and well-being over the sensibilities of others. Likewise, only a nation or society of fools spends most of its time and effort in a pathetic attempt to avoid offending others rather than doing what is right and sensible. Greatness was never and will never be achieved in the grip of meek submission or cowardly retreat. Rather, it can only see the light of day where people are willing to do what is right and rational rather than what is most acceptable and convenient. E Pluribus Unum includes each of us and does not require that we surrender to the whim, fancy or tastes of those with the most political or social clout.

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Is the US in a "Cold Civil War"?

By Mark Steyn.

The 'cold civil war' in the U.S. | Macleans.ca - Culture - Media

That's quite a concept: "A cold civil war."

Yet, notwithstanding the author's formidable powers of imagination, its politics are more or less conventional for a novelist in the twilight of the Bush era: someone says, "Are you really so scared of terrorists that you'd dismantle the structures that made America what it is?" Someone else says, "America has developed Stockholm Syndrome towards its own government." Etc. But it's that one phrase that makes you pause: "A cold civil war."

Or so you'd think. In fact, it seems to have passed entirely without notice. Unlike "cyberspace" a quarter-century ago, the "cold civil war" is not some groovy paradigm for the day after tomorrow but a cheerless assessment of the here and now, too bleak for buzz. As far as I can tell, April Gavaza, at the Hyacinth Girl website, is pretty much the first American to ponder whether a "cold civil war" has any significance beyond the novel:

What would that entail, exactly? A cold war is a war without conflict, defined in one of several online dictionaries as "[a] state of rivalry and tension between two factions, groups, or individuals that stops short of open, violent confrontation." In that respect, is the current political climate one of "cold civil war"? I think arguments could be made to that effect. My mother, not much of a political enthusiast, has made similar assessments since the 2000 election ...

Indeed. A year before this next election in the U.S., the common space required for civil debate and civilized disagreement has shrivelled to a very thin sliver of ground. Politics requires a minimum of shared assumptions. To compete you have to be playing the same game: you can't thwack the ball back and forth if one of you thinks he's playing baseball and the other fellow thinks he's playing badminton. Likewise, if you want to discuss the best way forward in the war on terror, you can't do that if the guy you're talking to doesn't believe there is a war on terror, only a racket cooked up by the Bushitler and the rest of the Halliburton stooges as a pretext to tear up the constitution.

Americans do not agree on the basic meaning of the last seven years.

Suppose it's another 50/50 election with a narrow GOP victory dependent on the electoral college votes of one closely divided state. It's not hard to foresee those stickered Dems concluding that the system has now been entirely delegitimized.

Life is good, food is plentiful, there are a million and one distractions. In advanced democracies, politics is not everything, and we get on with our lives. In a sense, we outsource politics to those who want it most and participate albeit fitfully in whatever parameters of discourse emerge. For half a decade, the "regime change" and "inside job" types have set the pace.

Well, it takes two to have a cold civil war. The right must be doing some of this stuff, too, surely? Up to a point. But for the most part they either go along, or secede from the system -- they home-school, turn to talk radio and the Internet, read Christian publishers' books that shift millions of copies without ever showing up on a New York Times bestsellers list. The established institutions of the state remain under the monolithic control of forces that ceaselessly applaud themselves for being terrifically iconoclastic:

Perhaps the next president will be, as George W. Bush promised, "a uniter, not a divider." Perhaps some "centrist Democrat" or "maverick Republican" will win big, but right now it doesn't feel that way.

Asked what would determine the course of his premiership, Britain's Harold Macmillan famously replied, "Events, dear boy, events." Yet in the end even "events" require broad acknowledgement. For Republicans, 9/11 is the decisive event; for Democrats, late November 2000 in the chadlands of Florida still looms larger.

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Less than half of Americans have trust in the mass media.

Well, duh.

Republicans Remain Deeply Distrustful of News Media

Republicans in America today remain deeply distrustful of the national news media -- in sharp contrast to Democrats, who have a great deal more trust in the media's accuracy. Overall, less than half of Americans, regardless of partisanship, have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the mass media. Nearly half of Americans -- including over three-quarters of Republicans -- perceive the media as too liberal while fewer than one in five say the media are too conservative. Americans are less likely to perceive bias in their local news media than in the national news media.

The Governance survey shows that only 9% of Americans say they have a great deal of trust and confidence in the mass media to report the news "fully, accurately, and fairly," while another 38% say they have a "fair amount" of trust in the media to do this.

In this year's survey, exactly half as many Republicans as Democrats say they have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the news media. Independents tend to be closer to the largely cynical views of Republicans than to the more trusting views of Democrats.

The differences between Republican and Democratic views of the media have been evident throughout this decade, although in the September 2002 Gallup survey -- one year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- the gap between Republicans and Democrats was not nearly as large as it has been in the past four surveys.

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Phony Soldiers

American Thinker: Phony Soldiers, Phony Outrage, and Phony Patriotism

Congressional and Senate Democrats, along with the entire liberal political cabal, have been in a staged uproar ever since last week when Limbaugh made reference to Jesse McBeth and Scott Thomas Beauchamp who, adorning themselves with fraudulent credentials as members in good standing of the United States military, have been caught in blatant fraud, as they seek to make a case against the war.Rush Limbaugh's attackers have intentionally mischaracterized his criticism of such individuals as an assault the U.S. armed forces, asserting that he derided any troops who oppose the war as "phony soldiers."

In truth, he did no such thing, and his accusers know it. But why should they hesitate to lie about his words when they have gotten so much political mileage in the past few years by lying about virtually every other aspect of the terror war, the Republican Party, the military, and conservatism in general?

Reid knows full well that he is lying, and that his principled opposition knows that he is lying. He considers his target audience, Middle America, stupid and gullible. Here Reid hopes to make his case stick, at least among those dependent on the likes of CNN, NBC, or the New York Times for its news.

When the truth is revealed, as it eventually will be, no liberal retractions or apologies will be forthcoming. The liberal political apparatus will simply move on to its next target to be smeared, knowing full well that it will never be held accountable for this, or any other deception.

In truth, Limbaugh was very specific as to which "phony soldiers" he was referring. For Jesse McBeth, the moniker clearly fits. He was drubbed out of the military during boot camp (after only forty four days to be precise), but then went on to claim he had been a member of the Special Forces and under such false credentials delivered a plethora of fabricated stories, deriding the military and the mission. He was prominent in the media for a time.

Likewise Beauchamp, who did in fact serve overseas, but whose fabricated fables of abuse and atrocity have been thoroughly refuted by the rest of his outfit.

Limbaugh never even went so far as to include among the phonies Senator and former presidential wannabe John Kerry (D.-MA), whose entire "tour of duty" in Vietnam exceeded McBeth's enlistment by only two and a half months. And that brief Southeast Asian visit netted him three Purple Hearts under highly dubious circumstances.

But perhaps the most telling aspect of this latest offensive is the liberal characterization of Limbaugh, on several occasions just this past week, as "unpatriotic." This is quite an accusation coming from people who insist that the most heinous crime any conservative can commit is to "question the patriotism" of America's leftists as they deride the troops, while crediting America's enemies with every rightness of motive and strategy.

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American Culture

The unspeakable American culture - Los Angeles Times

I've come around to the view that the culture war can best be understood as a conflict between two different kinds of patriotism. On the one hand, there are people who believe being an American is all about dissent and change, that the American idea is inseparable from "progress." America is certainly an idea, but it is not merely an idea. It is also a nation with a culture as real as France's or Mexico's. That's where the other patriots come in; they think patriotism is about preserving Americanness.

Yet the strangest and most ironic aspect of our national culture is that we have an aversion to talking about a national culture. Samuel Huntington, one of the country's premier social scientists, has become something of a pariah for constantly reminding people (in books such as "The Clash of Civilizations" and "Who Are We?") that the United States is a nation, not just a government and a bunch of interest groups.

Many liberals hear talk of national culture and shout, "Nativist!" first and ask questions later, if at all. They believe it is a sign of their patriotism that they hold fast to the idea that we are a "nation of immigrants" -- forgetting that we are also a nation of immigrants who became Americans.

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The Chasm Between Us

Another must read.

Family Security Matters

Every once and a while an issue emerges that exposes in stark relief the great chasm separating Right from Left – where the differences revealed are so profound that the two sides look at each other across this great divide and see not a political opponent but a strange and unfamiliar form of life whose habits of thought and moral calculus are so dissimilar as to make the gulf that separates them seem unbridgeable.

The on again-off again visit by President Ahmadinejad is such an issue. Rarely has the reaction to an event been so dichotomous. Perhaps not since the Terri Schiavo matter has the lines of understanding and perception been drawn so sharply that bewilderment mixed with outrage have been the dominant themes rather than the usual snark and spite that is hurled back and forth on a daily basis.

But for many on the Left, a suspension of moral certitude takes place when dealing with America’s enemies. In their haste to see “both sides” in a conflict, many on the Left forget (or deliberately choose to ignore) the nature of the Iranian regime, and why the spread of that ideology must be opposed and stopped if possible. In fact, the Left is so busy being even-handed that it becomes impossible to take a moral stand at all.

This then is the real chasm: the Right has moral certainty on this issue; the Left, a moral relativeness.

The outrage felt by many on the Right regarding Ahmadinejad’s now scuttled visit to Ground Zero and the Left’s mockery and bewilderment of it open the chasm between us just a little bit wider. I have no idea how to bridge the difference between us. I hope it won’t take some cataclysmic event to make it happen.

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