Ghastly Implications

Mark Steyn's piece is so good that I am going to put up the whole thing.

Will we stick our necks out for his faith?

By MARK STEYN

Fate conspires to remind us what this war is reallyabout: civilizational confidence. And so history repeats itself: first the farce of the Danish cartoons, and now the tragedy - a man on trial for his life in post-Taliban Afghanistan because he has committed the crime of converting to Christianity.

The cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were deeply offensive to Muslims, and so thousands protested around the world in the usual restrained manner - rioting, torching, killing, etc.

The impending execution of Abdul Rahman for embracing Christianity is, of course, offensive to Westerners, and so around the world we reacted equally violently by issuing blood-curdling threats like that made by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack: "Freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy," he said. "And these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that they are going to have to deal with increasingly."

The immediate problem for Abdul Rahman is whether he'll get the chance to "mature" along with Afghan democracy. The president, the Canadian prime minister and the Australian prime minister have all made statements of concern about his fate, and it seems clear that Afghanistan's dapper leader, Hamid Karzai, would like to resolve this issue before his fledgling democracy gets a reputation as just another barbarous Islamist sewer state. There's talk of various artful compromises, such as Rahman being declared unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity on the grounds that (I'm no Islamic jurist so I'm paraphrasing here) anyone who converts from Islam to Christianity must, ipso facto, be nuts.

On the other hand, this "moderate" compromise solution is being rejected by leading theologians. "We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," says Abdul Raoulf of the nation's principal Muslim body, the Afghan Ulama Council. "Cut off his head! We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there's nothing left." Needless to say, Imam Raoulf is one of Afghanistan's leading "moderate" clerics.

For what it's worth, I'm with the Afghan Ulama Council in objecting to the insanity defense. It's not enough for Abdul Rahman to get off on a technicality. Afghanistan is supposed to be "the good war," the one even the French supported, albeit notionally and mostly retrospectively. Karzai is kept alive by a bodyguard of foreigners. The fragile Afghan state is protected by American, British, Canadian, Australian, Italian and other troops, hundreds of whom have died. You cannot ask Americans or Britons to expend blood and treasure to build a society in which a man can be executed for his choice of religion. You cannot tell a Canadian soldier serving in Kandahar that he, as a Christian, must sacrifice his life to create a Muslim state in which his faith is a capital offense.

As always, we come back to the words of Osama bin Laden: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse." That's really the only issue: The Islamists know our side have tanks and planes, but they have will and faith, and they reckon in a long struggle that's the better bet. Most prominent Western leaders sound way too eager to climb into the weak-horse suit and audition to play the rear end. Consider, for example, the words of the Prince of Wales, speaking a few days ago at al-Azhar University in Cairo, which makes the average Ivy League nuthouse look like a beacon of sanity. Anyway, this is what His Royal Highness had to say to 800 Islamic "scholars":

"The recent ghastly strife and anger over the Danish cartoons shows the danger that comes of our failure to listen and to respect what is precious and sacred to others. In my view, the true mark of a civilized society is the respect it pays to minorities and to strangers."

That's correct. But the reality is that our society pays enormous respect to minorities - President Bush holds a monthlong Ramadan-a-ding-dong at the White House every year. The immediate reaction to the slaughter of 9/11 by Western leaders everywhere was to visit a mosque to demonstrate their great respect for Islam. One party to this dispute is respectful to a fault: after all, to describe the violence perpetrated by Muslims over the Danish cartoons as the "recent ghastly strife" barely passes muster as effete Brit toff understatement.

Unfortunately, what's "precious and sacred" to Islam is its institutional contempt for others. In his book "Islam And The West," Bernard Lewis writes, "The primary duty of the Muslim as set forth not once but many times in the Quran is 'to command good and forbid evil.' It is not enough to do good and refrain from evil as a personal choice. It is incumbent upon Muslims also to command and forbid." Or as the Canadian columnist David Warren put it: "We take it for granted that it is wrong to kill someone for his religious beliefs. Whereas Islam holds it is wrong not to kill him." In that sense, those imams are right, and Karzai's attempts to finesse the issue are, sharia-wise, wrong.

I can understand why the president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would rather deal with this through back channels, private assurances from their Afghan counterparts, etc. But the public rhetoric is critical, too. At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies. Abdul Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to, not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet.

What can we do? Should governments with troops in Afghanistan pass joint emergency legislation conferring their citizenship on this poor man and declaring him, as much as Karzai, under their protection?

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" - the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

India today is better off without suttee. If we shrink from the logic of that, then in Afghanistan and many places far closer to home the implications are, as the Prince of Wales would say, "ghastly."

I nods to the Pink Flamingo Bar & Grill.

McLuhan's Massage

Marshall must be laughing his ass off on the other side and brandishing heavenly high fives for all. If only he were here to view the spectacle, it would make his life. In the span of only a few days two exalted guru's of the mystical media have removed all doubt and sealed the coffin on what honest folk have known all along. The media's total contempt for the truth supports a cancerous ego that prevents an honest reporting of facts. Not only that but it supports the fact that Dan Rather's "Fake but accurate" mantra is systemic.
On Monday the editor in chief of CBC news, Tony Berman, punched out an article titled "Thanks, Mr. Loney. Just don't read the news." Tony was contemptuous of the folks who found much fault with the pacifists in general and Loney in particular and consider him, as I do, a useful fool. Our Mr. Berman pays homage to Loney and his ilk and in the process lays this bomb on us:

"....It coincided with some of the main conclusions of a major study the CBC has conducted about what Canadians "want" and "need" from their news media.

According to this study, more Canadians than ever feel that news shouldn't be a passive process. It should stimulate action and engagement, and help connect Canadians with the major challenges of our times."

There you have it. It's not the news he wants to give us, it's his interpretation of the news that's important. He thinks we are fools and that his twisted value ethic is superior to that of the citizens of Canada. The man is bonkers, totally out of it. They must be smoking really strong stuff at CBC headquarters. Read the whole piece of trash here.

There is small wonder that there are many of us out here who would like to see the CBC abolished. The waste of taxpayers hard earned money is well known and to have to pay for being visually and verbally assaulted is the last straw.
Richard Evans at Canuckistan Chronicles posts an open letter to PMSN to eliminate all public funding for the CBC and it's a good one.

Round two, surprise, is not something completely different.

Larry Zolf penned a piece yesterday that reminds me of Col. Jessep in "A Few Good Men." You know the scene where Lt. Kaffee tricks Jessep to blurt out, "You're damn right I did." Well, our man, PNSH, just hoisted Zolf and I love it so.
Zolf said:

"Harper'’s treatment of the media is that of an ingrate. The media made Harper. The media also first made Trudeau and Mulroney. Later, the media made both Trudeau and Mulroney and their parties suffer at the polls.
A similar fate awaits Harper if he doesn'’t change his basic suspicion and hatred of reporters and news commentators."

The arrogance is palpable and we can visualize the drooling salivava splashing on his keyboard as he pounds out his hatred for the man on the Hill. Read his whole diatribe here.

Two days, two loonies. To quote Maggie Muggins, "I don't know what will happen tomorrow!"

I nods to SDA.

Life Imitates The Onion, Again!

Actually it's worse than that, it's Monty Pythonesque and it would be hilarious except that literally, billions of lives are involved. Yup, that was illions with a B.

I am no fan of the UN, yah, I know our very own Dufus Pearson came up with the "Peacekeeping" force idea and every Canadian can now be assured that there will be no more wars, only Canadians keeping peace around the world. Cue a rousing rendition of "We are the World," while I puke.

Are you ready for this?

The IAEA, that's the International Atomic Energy Agency, Director-General, Mohamed ELBaradei spoke at a conference of German dentists.... Woah you say! He spoke where? Well it was in Karlsruhe, right where the Rhine takes a big left turn and where I used to have some fun many, many years ago, but that's another story.
The head of the IAEA goes to a dentists convention in Germany and says:

"The title of my talk is 'Putting Teeth in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Regime.'

Blows my mind! What's even worse is that the speech is nothing but bullshit. Mo blathers on about his five measures and then abdicates responsibility. He is part of the problem. The IAEA has no teeth, pardon the pun, in this case and he knows it. I would dearly love to know the real reason for Mo to travel to Germany to address a dentist conference. It doesn't make sense. I suspect he needed an excuse to go purchase some piece of art or antique piece of furniture and this was the cover.

As I said the UN is a total waste of time, energy and money. All the UN accomplishes is to give a legitimate platform for petty dictators, despots and thugs to throw grit into the wheels of progress.

The fact that the IAEA D-G is named Mohamed is of no consequence either, right? Naaaaaah!

I nods to the unknown blogger.

Today Tehran, Tomorrow The World

The old adage that history repeats itself has a modicum of truth to it. Granted, the exact reincarnation of events never transpires but the human methodologies can be viewed down through the portals of time with eerie similarities. If you recall the opening scene in "2001, A Space odyssey," you will remember that the suggested beginning of technological advancement began with the use of an animal's jaw bone as a weapon of human destruction. The capability for mass human destruction is now a fact of life and as I have posited for many decades now, the definition of peace is the interval between two wars. Such statements drive the believers in "peace" at all costs into paroxysms of flying spittle.

The hard and irrevocable truth of life is that peace has to be fought for, it doesn't just happen because we want it to. The sad fact is that there are those who want what we have and have no compunction about destroying everyone and everything that gets in their way. Because we neglected to stop Hitler before he was powerful enough to devastate much of Europe and kill untold millions we are to blame, at least our forefathers were. That same situation exists today only the stakes are much higher, instead of millions who could die it will be billions and we cannot afford to take that chance.

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent piece on the subject:

"Our planet is 4,500,000,000 years old, and we've had nukes for exactly 61. No one knows the precise prospects for human extinction,......."

Read the whole thing here if it's the only thing you read this week.

I nods to the Maverick Philosopher.

Update: Dennis Prager weighs in. He believes that the threat is greater than the German and Soviet threats were.

Update II: Ex-Mossad chief believes we are on the eve of WWIII.

The Dufus of Wales

The picture says it all. If you want more visit the Sandmonkey.

Sigh!!!!!!

The phony Pacifists

I have noted in an earlier post what I thought of the CPT and Melanie Phillips really lets them have it in today's Daily Mail:

"They appear to be outraged only by the violence on one side – and it is always their own side. Thus they were welcomed by Saddam Hussein when they presented themselves in Iraq as human shields against the invasion. Now the targets of their campaign in Iraq are the coalition soldiers against whom they draw up inventories of allegations of abuse -- which in turn foment further violence that claims the lives of coalition soldiers and Iraqis alike.

In a devastating put-down, Iraq’s embassy to Canada has lashed out at the Peacemakers, calling them ‘phony pacifists’, ‘wilfully ignorant’ and ‘dupes for jihadism and fascism’, and accusing them of being on the side of the anti-democratic forces in Iraq.

But pacifist anti-western prejudice has an older pedigree. In 1945, George Orwell wrote: ‘Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other; but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States’."

Read the whole pithy story here.

I notice Debris Trail over at CJ has a point of view on the story too.

Update: Peter Worthington, in the Sun takes a shot at the CPT also.

Jane Fonda, We Are Holding Your Seat!

One slimeball Georgia senator, that's Georgia USA not the original, decided he would sycophantically suck up to Jane Fonda. That would be Steen Miles (D-Decatur) that means he is a Demorat from De kater not like it looks in French.
Old Steen-O introduced a resolution to honour Jane for her community work especially her role as founder and chairwoman of the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. This was only one of hundreds of resolutions that pass through the Georgia senate every year but Senator John Douglas suddenly realized that Resolution 1189 was a slap in the face to the veterans of America said, "Woah."
slimy Steen tried to withdraw his resolution but Douglas pushed for a vote.
Guess what?
Defeated 38 to 1.
Some days there is justice.
Visit Douglas' site here and read the story from a real American's point of view.
To quote Patton, "I love it so."

And then from Iraq we have the following, thanks to the grouchy old cripple.

There are days when you just feel really good about being right!

Chinese Blogger in Jail

Blogger Hao Wu who has a site known as Beijing or Bust has been incarcerated in China and there is no news of what has happened to him or the charges other than the State has acknowledged that he has been detained and he has spoken briefly with his family. He was picked up on Feb. 22nd by the Security Bureau and suspicion is that the authorities want to use Hao's videos to prosecute underground churches. More info at The Peking Duck and here.

I have sent a letter to the Chinese embassy in Ottawa and invite you to do the same. Here is the addy.
chinaemb_ca@mfa.gov.cn

The ambassador is H.E. Lu Shumin
Snail mail 515 St. Patrick Street, Ottawa, Ont. K1N 5H3

For Americans the embassy in Washington is here.

I nods to Instapundit.

So You Love "Free" Medical Care

The debate about medical care in Canada has been raging for years and shows no sign of letting up. The National socialist Party love the single tier system while at the other end Libertarians would have it scrapped. I go for scraping the whole thing but I am not so naive as to believe it is possible under current conditions. What I find most distressing is the adamant desire to stifle freedom of choice and in actual fact seeking private care is illegal in most places. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that the government runs that is efficient. The total control of the medical system is a social and financial disaster and getting worse. The horror stories abound and to demonstrate just how bad it will get we only have to look to England who have had the National Health Service for much much longer than we have.
There is a Dr. John Crippen who keeps a diary and you will find it hard to believe what passes as the practice of medicine in Jolly old England these days. To give you a taste, if you can stomach it:

"At the end of the surgery, a deputation of district nurses arrive to discuss an elderly paraplegic patient. He was admitted to hospital three weeks ago with chest pain. The pain turned out not to be cardiac. The nursing care whilst he was in hospital was appalling. He was on Dixon ward. The hoist was not working so they could not get him out of bed as they should. He was transferred to a side room. This is more private that the general ward, but so private that even the nurses do not go in there. He was once left on the commode for four hours as they forgot about him.
He went in with some sacral redness, but came out with a Grade IV pressure sore around his sacrum. The nurses are so disgusted, they have photographed it.

Grade IV Sacral Bed Sore
(Wikipedia classification here)

The hospital sent him home. They sent him home on a Friday evening. Home in a worse state that he went in. They sent him home to his eighty year old wife with one of the worst pressure sores I have seen in years. He has now developed intractable diarrhoea, and it coats the pressure sore. He needs round the clock intensive nursing therapy, including being turned regularly. We cannot do this at home. They cannot do it in hospital it seems either. The nurses are too busy eating pizza or pretending to be doctors."

The above is only the tip of the iceberg and Dr. Crippen is only one man and his diary is damming of a nationalized program that is totally corrupt. The contempt for patients is criminal and the overwhelming bureaucratic red tape nightmare insures that the problem will only get worse. If you think it can't happen here you can only have an IQ not much larger than your waist size.

Read D. Crippen's journal yourself and weep.

I nods to Silent Running.

What is a Moderate Muslim?

I was linked to The Pink Flamingo by LGF and he answers the question thusly:

Scalia of course is brilliant. But still this quote struck me as even more brilliant than usual. Can you imagine taking this out of the context he meant it and applying it to say....Islam?
Scalia Rails Against the 'Judge-Moralist'"What is a moderate interpretation of (the Constitution)? Halfway between what it says and halfway between what you want it to say?"
So what is a moderate Muslim, someone who is halfway between what the Koran says and what we infidels want it to say?

I am just asking the question and the reason is the comment left by Rockin' Hejabi
on my Lord Jello piece. It seems to me that a great many Muslims defend valid criticisms of extreme Muslims instead of censuring them. CAIR and their Canadian counterpart are fine examples of groups that seem as dedicated to defending radicals as it is to fostering inter faith and social issues. CAIR calls itself a "civil rights" organization but in reality it is anything but. Why would a civil rights org. call for a probe into the U.S. foreign relations vis a vis the Israeli prison attack? CAIR has been called a shady and disgusting organization by Christopher Hitchens who was a co-plaintiff in a case concerning NSA wiretaps.
There is a wealth of information here that will remove all doubt about what CAIR is all about. The list is long and the references are irrefutable. It appears that so called "moderate" Muslims are attacking the wrong targets or perhaps they are not really "moderate" at all!

The Night He Became An American

Over the years I have run into people, figuratively, although on one occasion quite literally who no matter what you said or tried to convey, could not change their convictions of who you should be based on preconceived notions. It doesn't bother me anymore but I do confess that at first I found it hard to fathom. While I am not a social philosopher I do believe the effect of the last fifty years of biased and vicious journalism especially European and middle Eastern has painted a very slanted and derogatory picture of America and Americans and by implication Canadians.
The author Lee Harris recounts how he came to terms with who he really is in a piece titled "The Night I Became An American." While on the night train from Innsbruck to Vienna."

"I was an American, and, therefore, I had to be the kind of person who, when in a strange land, would make a bee-line to the closest McDonald's, out of fear of tasting the food of foreigners."

It's a great story and the Guy de Maupassant ending is sublime.

I nods to TCS Daily.

Lord Jello

As those who follow my pontificatory gems of wisdom know, I have been laying it on the editor of the Telegram for not publishing the "Cartoons." I send him bon mots on a regular basis and today the great Mark Steyn had a doosie in the Western Standard that was, as Jimmy Durante would say, "apropos to de occasion." Mark castigated the media with his usual biting satire. Here are a few of the great lines:

"Many parties have behaved wretchedly in these last few weeks--European commissioners, the British foreign secretary, the U.S. State Department, significant chunks of the incoming Canadian cabinet, the dead-again Christians who lead the United Church of Canada--but the western media have managed to produce a uniquely creepy synthesis of craven capitulation and self-serving pomposity."

How about:

"Or as Philip Lee, professor of journalism at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, put it: "Freedom of the press means you can publish, or not. Not publishing is also an expression of freedom." Up to a point, Lord Jello. That's a valid position if you're the editor of, say, the Ottawa Citizen and some fellow mails you some cartoons about Mohammed and you say, "Interesting idea, old boy. Unfortunately, not quite our bag." But that's no longer tenable when the cartoons themselves are the story. Then it's not even simple news judgment; it's the headline and you've no choice in the matter. "

And:

"Anyone who's spent any time in the Muslim world cannot help but be struck by its profound ignorance. The famous United Nations statistic from a 2002 report--more books are translated into Spanish in a single year than have been translated into Arabic in the last thousand--suggests at the very minimum an extraordinarily closed society, which in turn explains its stunted political development "

Great stuff:

"Meanwhile, we prattle on about "moderate Muslims," telling ourselves that the "vast majority" of Muslims aren't terrorists, don't support terrorists, etc. Okay, why don't we hear from them then?
Because they live in communities where the ideological bullies set the pace, where the price of speaking out is too high, and so they find it easier to say nothing, keep their heads down. And why would we expect them to do any differently when the mighty BBC and CNN do the same? If there is such a thing as a "moderate Muslim," he's surely thinking, "Well, if the CBC and the Toronto Star have to knuckle under to the imams, there's no point me tossing in my two bits."

That should tease you to go read the whole piece in the Standard. A subscription is required but it's free. The Western Standard should be patronized because it was the only one to post the "Cartoons."

I nods to Damian.

Fighting Militant Islam

I have been reading the works of Daniel Pipes for a long time and I think that he is one sharp cookie. He has a perspective that is accurate and unbiased. His arguments are cogent and proffered with measured analysis. It is hard to refute his conclusions based on step by step linking of irrefutable evidence.
In November of 2001 Daniel said, much to the consternation of those apologists for Islam as the religion of peace:

"Apologists would tell us that Islamism is a distortion of Islam, or even that it has nothing to do with Islam, but that is not true; it emerges out of the religion, while taking features of it to a conclusion so extreme, so radical, and so megalomaniacal as to constitute something new. It adapts an age-old faith to the political requirements of our day, sharing some key premises of the earlier totalitarianisms, fascism and Marxism-Leninism. It is an Islamic-flavored version of radical utopianism. Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers."

Read the whole piece here. Pipes has been vilified in many publications and on numerous radio and TV programs since he wrote those words

Now we find his analysis is spot on and has given everyone who has an IQ higher than their waist measurement, pause for sober reflection. The case of Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar at the University of North Carolina has vindicated what Daniel said almost five years ago.

Read this:

"Until his would-be murderous rampage, Taheri-azar, a philosophy and psychology major, had an apparently normal existence and promising future. In high school, he had been student council president and a member of the National Honor Society. A number of UNC students told the Los Angeles Times that he “was a serious student, shy but friendly.” One fellow student, Brian Copeland, “was impressed with his knowledge of classical Western thought, adding “He was kind and gentle, rather than aggressive and violent.” The university chancellor, James Moeser, called him a good student, if “totally a loner, introverted and into himself.”

Pipes complete analysis of " Sudden Jihad Syndrome" makes compelling reading.

It's not cartoons folks, it's your ass that's on the line so take your diversity and shove it up the ass that fits.

I nods to Michelle.

Blather On, You're Cut Off!

We all know about the forged Texas Air national Guard documents that Dan Blather tried to foist on us and his 2 ic Mary Mapes who is, unbelievably, still on the lecture circuit trying to convince idiotarians that the fakes were real! Well old Dan showed up in Cherry Hill, that's in South Joisy not Manuels, and proceeded to lecture about "Tough questions and the follow-up." Taking Dano at his word, our man in the street asked a tough question and when he got a disingenuous response he went for the follow-up at which time his mic was cut off. Beautiful, just John F-ing Kerry Beautiful! Sad part is if he had dealt with the question there and then the rest of the world would not now what a weasel he really is. Read all about Jim Walsh's head on with the Danster here.

I nods to that lesser Captain.

So You're Queer, You'll Get Over It!

It's a week late I know but I never said I had a deadline to meet and my public can handle it. You're a tough lot.
When Brokeback Mountain failed to produce the expected clean sweep at the Oscars there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth and the usual suspects went looking for villains which was most laughable. God old Colby Cosh put it into perspective better than anyone I have read. He said:

"I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, but some things are simply defenceless against mockery, and judging from the Oscar-night clips, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal's clenched-faced declarations of undying love are among them. Mainstream culture has now accepted homosexuality, but it's still an ironic acceptance: the stock phrase is the Seinfeldian "...not that there's anything wrong with that." In a strange way, the diversitarian modern outlook perhaps guarantees that gay (or unconvincingly bisexual) men can never expect "orientation-blindness" the way that racial minorities once pleaded for "colour-blindness"; we embrace gays as different but valuable, even precious. Indeed, it is almost a matter of "the gayer, the better."

It would probably be a poorer world if gay males were merely equal in capacity and similar in aspirations to the rest of us--and it would be difficult to account for high gay incomes and gay cultural leadership. (It can even be argued that extralegal relations between the races must be revised, in the long run, in favour of "different but valuable" as a more realistic, tenable, and virtuous goal than "equal in every regard.") Barring the triumph of a truly "orientation-blind" approach, gay men--relieved of the burdens of social persecution and legal proscription--will continue to pay the same modest price for being different that the obese and the aged do, or indeed that both sexes pay for being different from one another. And texts that argue for the "normalcy" of gay love and sexual life will fail to convince--and, in failing to convince, will make us giggle."

There is nothing I could possibly add to that.

And Now For Something completely Different

Any Monty Python fans out there? Well, here is a little something from 1975 that was just unearthed. An interview with four of the fab snakes in of all places, Dallas Texas on KERA which is a PBS affiliate. They had just finished "The Holy Grail" and were on their way across the States. Ya gotta love the hair and Graham Chapman is soused as usual.

I nods to Colby.

Are You Honest with Yourself?

I want you to read the following which was posted last year by The Amazing Wonderdog. It really fits in with one of my earlier posts but for now carry on:

On minority rights

Political progressives share a concern for minority rights. It is not legitimate, in the progressive view, for a majority to impose its cultural assumptions on a minority. We expect that minorities should be free to enjoy and express their own culture, and we value learning about other cultures. Or so we like to think.

What is culture? We take it for granted that an Indian fishing for salmon in BC or spearing walleye in Ontario is not only gathering food, but expressing his culture. It is unquestioned, in the progressive view, that he is not only fishing, but expressing fundamental ideas about his relationship to the river, to the fish, and to the Earth. Fishing is part of his culture.

Take, then, a man whose Anglo-Irish family came to Canada around 1800, who parks his nice, shiny SUV and walks down to the river in $400 Gore-Tex waders and $200 felt-soled wading boots. He fishes using a $1000 graphite fly rod and a $60 plastic-coated line for fish that, before the late nineteenth century, were not even found in these waters. And he's not even fishing for food. He's going to let them all go, every last one. He's just doing it just for fun.

He's probably a fucking banker, too.

Is sport fishing an expression of his "culture?"

Answer carefully. Bear in mind that the earliest known English language work on fishing, The Treatise of Fishing with an Angle (late 14th, early 15th century) deals not only with how to fish, but with the spiritual side of fishing:

Salomon in hys paraboles seith that a glad spirit maket a flowryng age -- That ys to sey, a feyr age & a longe. And sith hyt ys so, j aske this questyon, "Wyche bynne the menys & cause to reduse a man to a mery spryte?" Truly, vn-to my sympul discrescon, it semyth me, good & honest dysportes and games in wyche a mans hert joythe with-owt any repentans.

In other words, sport is good for your heart and soul, because it is good clean fun. Those are the opening sentences of the Treatise. The whole point of the thing is that fishing is good for your soul, not that fish taste good when you fry them with butter and onions. The Treatise is not only the first English book on fishing; it's also the first English book on fishing for sport.

That same thread is taken up by Izaak Walton in The Compleat Angler (1653). The Compleat Angler is not only a handy instruction book for the 17th century fisherman, but an argument for fishing as a form of sport (in its original sense of "recreation") and as a spiritual refuge. Some read it, in fact, as a religious allegory. It's often said that the three most-reprinted books in English are The Holy Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and The Compleat Angler.

Now, let's return to the fly-fisherman I earlier encouraged you to sneer at. Did you notice that he is fishing with a hand-tied fly, a fly that reflects his mastery of the centuries-old craft of fly-tying? Did you see that he's fishing in early December, by a perversely unproductive method? Were you aware that he probably won't even see a fish today, much less catch one? And did you, puzzled, ask him why he was there?

Of course you didn't, because I'm a manipulative bastard, and I didn't tell you those things.

But now that you know that what he's doing involves a centuries-old literature, a complex craft, and an ineffable spiritual component that puts our banker out on the river when he has almost no chance of catching anything but a bad cold, does your view of his "culture" change?

It should, for he's expressing fundamental ideas about his relationship to the river, the fish, and the Earth, not to mention the value of tradition, and the virtue of hard work and perseverance. And his, like almost all "cultures," is a minority culture. He represents, at best, about 10 percent of Canadians.

This brings me, dear reader, neatly to a point on which I now intend to skewer you: amidst the reactions to Paul Martin's proposed handgun ban, there are obviously a wide range of opinions, and all of them are honest, save one.

That's the idea that there is no reason to own a gun in Canada.

This idea is an assumption that the rights -- to free expression, for almost everything we do expresses something -- of a small minority of Canadians are unimportant. Not only that, it dismisses the ideas and the culture of those Canadians out of hand, with no effort to understand them. (And please, if you say this is not a cultural question, I hope you've never let the words "gun culture" pass your lips.) Canadians who own guns clearly have their reasons. Do you understand them?

Chances are, the people who say this have based their ideas of gun owners upon stereotypes, just as I encouraged you to do with my fly-fishing banker.

We have a word for people who think that way. We call them bigots.

Argue, if you will, that a handgun ban will be an effective public safety measure. But don't argue that the rights of gun owners can be dismissed by a single sentence: "There's no reason to own a gun in this country."

-----
P.S. to forestall some obvious comments: I do not own, and have never owned, any firearms. And although Canadian gun owners do not have the right to keep and bear arms, they do have a broad right to continue to live their lives freely within the law, and to do as they please, which is inherent in the very notion of a "free" society.

Amen brother!

Soooooooooooooooooo did he get you? If yes, you deserved it and need to go to critical thinking school and come back when you finish and tell us all about it.
The Most important lesson to be learned from the above is that a vast majority of Canadians have been hoodwinked by the left wing fanatics who have convinced the common folk that they don't know how to think for themselves and the Libranos know what's best for you. Down in the States the fight to maintain the right to keep and bear arms is constantly under attack. The Left wants to not only take our arms away but everything else also. The fight to remain free is one of eternal vigilance. We must fight tooth and nail to keep the bureaucrats off our backs.

I nods to Babbling Brooks.

A Life For A Cartoon Is Not A Fair Trade

Most have heard about Mohammed Al-Asaid who was arrested in Yemen for publishing the "Cartoons." There is a global movement to put pressure on Yemen and others. You can do your part by sending an e-mail to moyen-orient2@rsf.org.
Every little bit helps. Remember: for evil to succeed all it takes is for good men to do nothing.

I nods to Arabian Dissent.

The gospel according to Bart

Bart has a very interesting story and I recognize it only too well. I have been down the path of total dedication and then the blinders came off, the rosy hue depleted from the glasses and then the hypocrisy and blatant need for power pushed me over the edge. I know the mental struggle and the sudden realization and then the understanding that I wasted so much time and energy. Free at last had a whole new meaning for me and I have not looked back since. Read about Bart and you will get the picture. Perhaps I will have a little rant about the Irish Christian Brothers one day soon. I do have a little knowledge of them. They taught me for eleven years and except for one year it was hell. Read all about Bart here.

I nods to Dean

Ars Brevis

This is cool.

Tom Fox, What a Waste

By now everyone has learned that Tom Fox's body was found beaten and bullet ridden in a suburb of Baghdad. He was a member of a nutjob group called Christian Peacemaker Teams whose aim is to try to talk and protest the conflicts in a number of places around the world. The single biggest flaw in their modus operandi is they blame all sides in a conflict so they protest the Israelis with more vigor because the Israelis don't murder them as the Palestinians do. I find the CPT to be a contemptible organization because by getting in the way they put our people at risk. They don't even have the guts to publish on their website that Tom was murdered, they just say he died! Unbelievable! So I wrote them a letter:

"You people disgust me! One of your own is tortured and brutally murdered and all you can say is," The death of our beloved colleague and friend pierces us with pain. Tom Fox’s body was found in Baghdad yesterday. "

THE DEATH???? He didn't pass peacefully away in his sleep, you morons!

His murder was needless. You people sent him to his death, granted he went willingly but your beliefs have no sway against evil terrorists and others who place no value on life. You people just don't get it. What irritates me most about you whackos is that by getting in the way you actually put other peoples lives at risk and for that reason I consider you hypocrites and enablers. The enemies of freedom are fired by what to them is the lunacy of the West when they view your actions. Your fanaticism is counterproductive to stamping out terrorism. May you all rot in hell for your misguided zeal."

But how do I really feel, you ask?

I nods to Michelle.

Update: Here is another example of the hypocracy of the CPT and here.

Milovesic is Gone

Found dead in his cell. The autopsy will tell if he robbed the executioner and The Sandmonkey had this to say:

"Here is something that I just thought of: Does it ever strike you as odd that the muslim world hates Bush more than he does Milosevic and Saddam? I mean, the first engaged in a massive genocide against muslims (and was stopped by the US and Nato forces), and the other attacked Iran, Kuwait and Saudi, murderd thousands of their people, let alone killing thousands of Kurds and Shia's. But who does the average arab/muslim hate? Bush.

How does this work again? Does anyone know?"

Check out the comments here.

Gutless Rabble

I was directed to a Rabble forum by RC and the gist was that Our folks in Washingchuck had no business putting up a website that "glorifies war."
Soooooooooo I went over toRabble and threw out a few verbs and boy did the shit hit the fan. It was fun until I was unceremoniously dumped. It only proved my point about freedoms. Sad sad sad.

Update:
slave has communicated to me that they published the above. The interesting thing is that while they called me a troll. I provided chapter and verse and the response was "fuck off." The issues I raised were not dealt with in any real way. Most of those moonbats would argue "free speech" up the ying yang but only if it agrees with their way and they cannot deal with the real world except for one nut from Iowa who would come here and shoot Americans if they invaded. Think about that. He wants to leave his home country and for some obscure reason conjures up a scenario of the U.S invading Canada and then fighting to the last to defend Canada. OH, the sauce on this cake is the Canadian who considers him a fine soldier and would consider it an honour to soldier beside him. Yah, to the nearest bar and bullshit about all the great things they could do together, (cue wizard of Oz music) If I only had a brain.

John Kerry has some plants out there and maybe that's the real invasion of Canada. Scary thought!

With George in India

The recent visit of POTUS to India and the subsequent nuclear agreement has caused many pundits to throw a few verbs into the ring. One piece caught my eye because I am into "The Anglosphere Challenge" by James C. bennett. The piece at Albionn's Seedlings makes a few very good points that have gone largely unnoticed in the west. For instance;

And in fact the Anglosphere, plus Japan and Israel, is gradually emerging as an informal U.S. alliance system that often works better than the formal NATO one. In this new world alliance India is a junior partner to nobody except the U.S. And the more India is seen as a dominant power in an Anglosphere alliance rather than a subordinate one in a purely U.S.-India alliance, the more easily India will shed its nostalgia for its days of Third World leadership.

Read it all here.

De Nile is not only a river in Egypt

I was linking from Normblog and hit upon Terry Glavin's site and as I read some of the comments I became stupified because of the following:

My thoughts and prayers go to Trevor Greene, his family, his friends. What happened to him is terrible, tragic, totally unwarranted, inexcusable. All violent acts perpetrated by human beings upon each other are terrible, needless, inexcusable. That said, I am against the war, because of it being a "war", whereas 'peacekeeping' should be that: 'keeping the peace', and 'promoting peace' by truly humanitarian actions. A family friend's son is also in Afghanistan. He too believes he is helping, and making a genuine difference. I honestly don't know.. My problem is with the bellicosity of people like Hillier who want to "kill the scum", and such statements that echo those of Bush & Company. Large numbers of armed soldiers--regardless of how well-intentioned they may be--look like occupation forces to the afghanies, rather than peacekeepers, especially if they are aligned with the U.S., who is seen as the 'big bully' since its invasion of Iraq. (Perhaps if the U.S. withdrew from there altogether, NATO peacekeeping could begin in earnest without the U.S. who are perceived as 'occupiers'.)? Maybe I am naive, but I feel that peace can be achieved only by peaceful, diplomatic means. "Democracy" (or any kind of regime-change) must come to a country from within, not foisted arbitrarily at gunpoint (and bombs) from outside, by another nation. The Afghanis have been under foreign occupation for decades upon decades. Is it possible that they've finally had enough? Is it not up to them to decide the fate of their country? If indeed it is as lawless as I've read from many reports, is our presence making any positive difference? Sure the Ambassador will say he wants the troops to stay. It is to the benefit of some people, no doubt. But is that what the majority of afghanies really want? Having lived through a terrible revolution in my mother country as a little girl, I had personally witnessed death and destruction. Because of that, war has left an indelible wound on my psyche, and since then, I abhor wars of any nature, for any reason. Still, I do not consider myself a pseudo-leftist or partisan of any particular party. If I am to be labelled, I guess it would be as being a progressive humanist. I just wish someone could give me an honest, believable reason for this war in Afghanistan. From all that I read, the Taliban is still in control everywhere with the exception of a few cities, and the opium trade is flourishing better than ever. This, how many years after the U.S. invasion?
The comments were made by Annamarie Deneen, a published and erstwhile literary figure.


So..................... I said:

You posted on Terry Glavin's blog the other day a very pointed elucidation of what seems an inner conflict that tears at you from within. You express sincere condolences to Trevor Greene'’s family and expanded on your inner revulsion for such needless loss. You say:

“My thoughts and prayers go to Trevor Greene, his family, his friends.
What happened to him is terrible, tragic, totally unwarranted, inexcusable.
All violent acts perpetrated by human beings upon each other are terrible, needless, inexcusable.
That said, I am against the war, because of it being a "war", whereas 'peacekeeping' should be that: 'keeping the peace', and 'promoting peace' by truly humanitarian actions.
A family friend's son is also in Afghanistan. He too believes he is helping, and making a genuine difference. I honestly don't know..

Well, maybe we can communicate but I doubt it. The fact that you said,

“I honestly don'’t know.

Gives me a window, unless you are only saying that to pretend that you really are looking at all sides of the equation. Your writings give me the impression that you are a blind idealistic peacenik I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you don'’t really know.

Sincerely, I find it really hard to understand that you, if I am to believe what you have posited as your genesis, that being a victim of the eastern European desecration of humanity now want to give in to what-ever totalitarian scum who would snuff you in an instant, just so you can rise above the fray and say, “I was pure,” I did not raise my hand to my fellow man!

Maybe I am naive, but I feel that peace can be achieved only by peaceful, diplomatic means.”Democracy" (or any kind of regime-change) must come to a country from within, not foisted arbitrarily at gunpoint (and bombs) from outside, by another nation.”

No you are not naive. You are an Idiotarian. You are a useful idiot! You and your ilk are responsible for millions of unnecessary deaths in the world and yet you espouse a useless and totally ridiculous mantra. There are hundreds of thousands of dedicated nut jobs out there who would like nothing better than to torture, rape and then kill you in the most brutal manner you could ever imagine.

What boggles the mind is that you profess that we can negotiate, talk, reason, and come to an understanding or whatever with these brutal bastards. You are NUTS.

So, by your own standards, when we liberated Paris from the Nazis, we did wrong? And the Parisians euphoria was a sham?

Your idealism is not to be commended. You are a pathetic and sad individual who has for whatever reason shirked her responsibilities as an honest citizen of Canada and capitulated to a cowardly agenda of appeasement.

You want an honest and believable reason for being in Afstan? Let me give you one!

An oppressed people who cry for help need support.

Are you so calloused that you don'’t know what the Taliban did to women in Afghanistan?

Have you not seen the clandestine videos of the butchery of women in the Olympic stadium?

Are you nuts?

You disgust me!

You portend to be a woman of letters and in reality you are a disgraceful shill and enabler for any petty dictator who would enslave his people.

I hate to say it but it needs to be said. You are a gutless woman. Your peace crap is just that, “shit." I cannot fathom how anyone who is being targeted for extinction can just sit there and say"“Ok, bring it on, I won'’t stop you, in fact, I will enable you"

You say:

"My problem is with the bellicosity of people like Hillier who want to "kill the scum", and such statements that echo those of Bush & Company"

What'’s your problem with killing the “scum" that have no compunction about killing you because you are not on his band wagon?

Again, are you nuts?

You say:

"Large numbers of armed soldiers--regardless of how well-intentioned they may be--look like occupation forces to the Afghanis, rather than peacekeepers, especially if they are aligned with the U.S., who is seen as the 'big bully' since its invasion of Iraq.
(Perhaps if the U.S. withdrew from there altogether, NATO peacekeeping could begin in earnest without the U.S. who are perceived as 'occupiers'.)? "

You make no sense whatsoever! Afghanistan was forcibly taken over by a bunch of nut jobs. The people couldn'’t even open their mouths without being shot. WE liberated them! We are helping them get their self esteem back. We are helping them keep out the outsiders who would enslave them AGAIN! They are organizing their own government with our help. You need to really listen to some of the people who have come forward and said what our intervention has meant to the common folk.

Your obsequious pandering to folks like St. Noam gives the lie to your real agenda as pathetic as it is. Please spare us the odd pandering effusive,”But I care” platitudes.

You couldn't care less! It’s your “I don'’t care if everyone on earth is butchered but I didn'’t lift a hand so you can'’t blame me,” attitude that really defines you.

You remind me of those poor disillusioned Jews who, as they were marching to the gas chambers of Auschwitz were heard to say," We'll be ok as long as we don't upset them."

” She has a blog which only, after a cursory inspection reveals her modus operandi, is pure kumbya krap.

I believe that this woman really believes what she espouses as being the only way to go. Too bad she hasn't spent a few months in Saudi Arabia or a host of other countries I could name. As I said before," naive" no! Idiot, yes!

I nods to Terry Glavin.

Internet in, TV out

If you are reading this there is a very good chance that this comes as no big surprise.

"A survey conducted on behalf of the search engine found that the average Briton spends around 164 minutes online every day, compared with 148 minutes watching television. That is equivalent to 41 days a year spent surfing the web: more than almost any other activity apart from sleeping and working."

I nods to Shuggy.

Manifesto

At last! The outspoken have called a spade exactly what it is. Enough of the PC olagenous and saponatious doublespeak. The reign of terror that dare not be named has now been screamed from the minarets of freedom and identified for what it is. Let us see how the so called bastions of freedom in the form of the MSM will handle it. I will do my part.

MANIFESTO:

Together facing the new totalitarianism

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

Presentations:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, from somilian origin, is member of Dutch parliement, member of the liberal party VVD. Writter of the film Submission which caused the assasination of Theo Van Gogh by an islamist in november 2004, she lives under police protection.

Chahla Chafiq
Chahla Chafiq, writer from iranian origin, exiled in France is a novelist and an essayist. She’s the author of "Le nouvel homme islamiste , la prison politique en Iran " (2002). She also wrote novels such as "Chemins et brouillard" (2005).

Caroline Fourest
Essayist, editor in chief of Prochoix (a review who defend liberties against dogmatic and integrist ideologies), author of several reference books on « laicité » and fanatism : Tirs Croisés : la laïcité à l’épreuve des intégrismes juif, chrétien et musulman (with Fiammetta Venner), Frère Tariq : discours, stratégie et méthode de Tariq Ramadan, et la Tentation obscurantiste (Grasset, 2005). She receieved the National prize of laicité in 2005.

Bernard-Henri Lévy
French philosoph, born in Algeria, engaged against all the XXth century « ism » (Fascism, antisemitism, totalitarism, terrorism), he is the author of La Barbarie à visage humain, L’Idéologie française, La Pureté dangereuse, and more recently American Vertigo.

Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is a Fellow at Yale University and the internationally best-selling author of "The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith" (en francais: "Musulmane Mais Libre"). She speaks out for free expression based on the Koran itself. Née en Ouganda, elle a fui ce pays avec sa famille musulmane d’origine indienne à l’âge de quatre ans et vit maintenant au Canada, où ses émissions et ses livres connaissent un énorme succès.

Mehdi Mozaffari
Mehdi Mozaffari, professor from iranian origin and exiled in Denmark, is the author of several articles and books on islam and islamism such as : Authority in Islam: From Muhammad to Khomeini, Fatwa: Violence and Discourtesy and Glaobalization and Civilizations.

Maryam Namazie
Writer, TV International English producer; Director of the Worker-communist Party of Iran’s International Relations; and 2005 winner of the National Secular Society’s Secularist of the Year award.

Taslima Nasreen
Taslima Nasreen is born in Bangladesh. Doctor, her positions defending women and minorities brought her in trouble with a comittee of integrist called « Destroy Taslima » and to be persecuted as « apostate »

Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie is the author of nine novels, including Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses and, most recently, Shalimar the Clown. He has received many literary awards, including the Booker Prize, the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, Germany’s Author of the Year Award, the European Union’s Aristeion Prize, the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature, the Premio Mantova, and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. He is a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres, an Honorary Professor in the Humanities at M.I.T., and the president of PEN American Center. His books have been translated into over 40 languages.

Philippe Val
Director of publication of Charlie Hebdo (Leftwing french newspaper who have republished the cartoons on the prophet Muhammad by solidarity with the danish citizens targeted by islamists).

Ibn Warraq
Ibn Warraq , author notably of Why I am Not a Muslim ; Leaving Islam : Apostates Speak Out ; and The Origins of the Koran , is at present Research Fellow at a New York Institute conducting philological and historical research into the Origins of Islam and its Holy Book.

Antoine Sfeir
Born in Lebanon, christian, Antoine Sfeir choosed french nationality to live in an universalist and « laïc » (real secular) country. He is the director of Les cahiers de l’Orient and has published several reference books on islamism such as Les réseaux d’Allah (2001) et Liberté, égalité, Islam : la République face au communautarisme (2005).

I nods to Agora and Instapundit