Would You Like Borders With That Socialism?

If Obama Can Use His Middle Name, Why Can't We?

2012-02-28T12:22:00.000-05:00

A clip from a prepared, widely televised and widely reported speech by President Barack Hussein Obama. It should be short enough for any Leftist to watch without losing attention:

Communists voted with me, not against me.

So, why is it that the rabid Left gets so upset whenever any unapproved voice uses the President's middle name? It is the "free speech for me, but not for thee" effect. The American political Left has been owned by National Socialists since the 1970s and they are not going to relinquish power. One of their key tools to keep power is silencing anybody they do not approve of, which is pretty stupid since they no longer control all communications in America.

Also note that finding clips of Obama using his middle name, occurrences that are not rare, are difficult to find using common search tools. It helped that I remembered this speech and could go direct to the source.

Watch online, or download the full speech in MP4 or MP3 format. Full transcript here:

THE WHITE HOUSEOffice of the Press Secretary(Cairo,Egypt)________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 4, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON A NEW BEGINNING

Cairo University

Cairo, Egypt

1:10 P.M. (Local)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I'm grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. And I'm also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum. (Applause.)
We meet at a time of great tension between the United States and Muslims around the world -- tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of coexistence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.
Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. All this has bred more fear and more mistrust.
So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end.
I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles -- principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. I know there's been a lot of publicity about this speech, but no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have this afternoon all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." (Applause.) That is what I will try to do today -- to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.
Now part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I'm a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.
As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam -- at places like Al-Azhar -- that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities -- (applause) -- it was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality. (Applause.)
I also know that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President, John Adams, wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims." And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, they have served in our government, they have stood for civil rights, they have started businesses, they have taught at our universities, they've excelled in our sports arenas, they've won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers -- Thomas Jefferson -- kept in his personal library. (Applause.)
So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. (Applause.)
But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. (Applause.) Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words -- within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum -- "Out of many, one."
Now, much has been made of the fact that an African American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President. (Applause.) But my personal story is not so unique. The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores -- and that includes nearly 7 million American Muslims in our country today who, by the way, enjoy incomes and educational levels that are higher than the American average. (Applause.)
Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state in our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That's why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it. (Applause.)
So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations -- to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.
Of course, recognizing our common humanity is only the beginning of our task. Words alone cannot meet the needs of our people. These needs will be met only if we act boldly in the years ahead; and if we understand that the challenges we face are shared, and our failure to meet them will hurt us all.
For we have learned from recent experience that when a financial system weakens in one country, prosperity is hurt everywhere. When a new flu infects one human being, all are at risk. When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations. When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean. When innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience. (Applause.) That is what it means to share this world in the 21st century. That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings.
And this is a difficult responsibility to embrace. For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes -- and, yes, religions -- subjugating one another in pursuit of their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; our progress must be shared. (Applause.)
Now, that does not mean we should ignore sources of tension. Indeed, it suggests the opposite: We must face these tensions squarely. And so in that spirit, let me speak as clearly and as plainly as I can about some specific issues that I believe we must finally confront together.
The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms.
In Ankara, I made clear that America is not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam. (Applause.) We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security -- because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.
The situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America's goals, and our need to work together. Over seven years ago, the United States pursued al Qaeda and the Taliban with broad international support. We did not go by choice; we went because of necessity. I'm aware that there's still some who would question or even justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with.
Now, make no mistake: We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We see no military -- we seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.
And that's why we're partnering with a coalition of 46 countries. And despite the costs involved, America's commitment will not weaken. Indeed, none of us should tolerate these extremists. They have killed in many countries. They have killed people of different faiths -- but more than any other, they have killed Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam. The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as -- it is as if he has killed all mankind. (Applause.) And the Holy Koran also says whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind. (Applause.) The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism -- it is an important part of promoting peace.
Now, we also know that military power alone is not going to solve the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's why we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who've been displaced. That's why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend on.
Let me also address the issue of Iraq. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world. Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible. (Applause.) Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be."
Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future -- and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. And I have made it clear to the Iraqi people -- (applause) -- I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq's sovereignty is its own. And that's why I ordered the removal of our combat brigades by next August. That is why we will honor our agreement with Iraq's democratically elected government to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by July, and to remove all of our troops from Iraq by 2012. (Applause.) We will help Iraq train its security forces and develop its economy. But we will support a secure and united Iraq as a partner, and never as a patron.
And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter or forget our principles. Nine-eleven was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year. (Applause.)
So America will defend itself, respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities which are also threatened. The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.
The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world.
America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.
Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction -- or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews -- is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.
On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they've endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations -- large and small -- that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own. (Applause.)
For decades then, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It's easy to point fingers -- for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought about by Israel's founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security. (Applause.)
That is in Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest. And that is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience and dedication that the task requires. (Applause.) The obligations -- the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the road map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them -- and all of us -- to live up to our responsibilities.
Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That's not how moral authority is claimed; that's how it is surrendered.
Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist.
At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. (Applause.) This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop. (Applause.)
And Israel must also live up to its obligation to ensure that Palestinians can live and work and develop their society. Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be a critical part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.
And finally, the Arab states must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities. The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state, to recognize Israel's legitimacy, and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.
America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs. (Applause.) We cannot impose peace. But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away. Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state. It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.
Too many tears have been shed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra -- (applause) -- as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer. (Applause.)
The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons.
This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is in fact a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I've made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question now is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.
I recognize it will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude, and resolve. There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect. But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America's interests. It's about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.
I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons. And that's why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. (Applause.) And any nation -- including Iran -- should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I'm hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.
The fourth issue that I will address is democracy. (Applause.)
I know -- I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other.

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere. (Applause.)
Now, there is no straight line to realize this promise. But this much is clear: Governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments -- provided they govern with respect for all their people.
This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they're out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. (Applause.) So no matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who would hold power: You must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Barack Obama, we love you!
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you. (Applause.) The fifth issue that we must address together is religious freedom.
Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshiped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. That is the spirit we need today. People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind and the heart and the soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it's being challenged in many different ways.
Among some Muslims, there's a disturbing tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of somebody else's faith. The richness of religious diversity must be upheld -- whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt. (Applause.) And if we are being honest, fault lines must be closed among Muslims, as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.
Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which we protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That's why I'm committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.
Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit -- for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We can't disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.

In fact, faith should bring us together. And that's why we're forging service projects in America to bring together Christians, Muslims, and Jews. That's why we welcome efforts like Saudi Arabian King Abdullah's interfaith dialogue and Turkey's leadership in the Alliance of Civilizations. Around the world, we can turn dialogue into interfaith service, so bridges between peoples lead to action -- whether it is combating malaria in Africa, or providing relief after a natural disaster.
The sixth issue -- the sixth issue that I want to address is women's rights. (Applause.) I know –- I know -- and you can tell from this audience, that there is a healthy debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. (Applause.) And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well educated are far more likely to be prosperous.
Now, let me be clear: Issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, we've seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.
I am convinced that our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons. (Applause.) Our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity -- men and women -- to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice. And that is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams. (Applause.)
Finally, I want to discuss economic development and opportunity.
I know that for many, the face of globalization is contradictory. The Internet and television can bring knowledge and information, but also offensive sexuality and mindless violence into the home. Trade can bring new wealth and opportunities, but also huge disruptions and change in communities. In all nations -- including America -- this change can bring fear. Fear that because of modernity we lose control over our economic choices, our politics, and most importantly our identities -- those things we most cherish about our communities, our families, our traditions, and our faith.
But I also know that human progress cannot be denied. There need not be contradictions between development and tradition. Countries like Japan and South Korea grew their economies enormously while maintaining distinct cultures. The same is true for the astonishing progress within Muslim-majority countries from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai. In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education.
And this is important because no development strategy can be based only upon what comes out of the ground, nor can it be sustained while young people are out of work. Many Gulf states have enjoyed great wealth as a consequence of oil, and some are beginning to focus it on broader development. But all of us must recognize that education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century -- (applause) -- and in too many Muslim communities, there remains underinvestment in these areas. I'm emphasizing such investment within my own country. And while America in the past has focused on oil and gas when it comes to this part of the world, we now seek a broader engagement.
On education, we will expand exchange programs, and increase scholarships, like the one that brought my father to America. (Applause.) At the same time, we will encourage more Americans to study in Muslim communities. And we will match promising Muslim students with internships in America; invest in online learning for teachers and children around the world; and create a new online network, so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo.
On economic development, we will create a new corps of business volunteers to partner with counterparts in Muslim-majority countries. And I will host a Summit on Entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.
On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries, and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create more jobs. We'll open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new science envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, grow new crops. Today I'm announcing a new global effort with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to eradicate polio. And we will also expand partnerships with Muslim communities to promote child and maternal health.
All these things must be done in partnership. Americans are ready to join with citizens and governments; community organizations, religious leaders, and businesses in Muslim communities around the world to help our people pursue a better life.
The issues that I have described will not be easy to address. But we have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world that we seek -- a world where extremists no longer threaten our people, and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes; a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God's children are respected. Those are mutual interests. That is the world we seek. But we can only achieve it together.
I know there are many -- Muslim and non-Muslim -- who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn't worth the effort -- that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur. There's so much fear, so much mistrust that has built up over the years. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country -- you, more than anyone, have the ability to reimagine the world, to remake this world.
All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort -- a sustained effort -- to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.
It's easier to start wars than to end them. It's easier to blame others than to look inward. It's easier to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There's one rule that lies at the heart of every religion -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. (Applause.) This truth transcends nations and peoples -- a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the hearts of billions around the world. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.
We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.
The Holy Koran tells us: "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."
The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."
The Holy Bible tells us: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." (Applause.)
The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now that must be our work here on Earth.
Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)
END
2:05 P.M. (Local)
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Socialists Just Can't Help Themselves (Video)

2012-02-27T12:18:00.001-05:00

Janeane Garafalo: National Socialist, Liberal Fascist

Here is a modern example of how the Socialistic Left likes to spin things around and then complain when they get caught in the undertow. Below is a video of Janeane Garafalo and Keith Olberman calling people who just want the government to be fiscally responsible a bunch of "teabagging rednecks," racists, and other unkind things. The closest that they come in the evidence category is hurling these ridiculous accusations.

How is a movement that began in response to Bush policies that a Democrat congress adopted supposed to be "racist" for that opposition? Because they got more intense along with the policies?

They also accuse the Teaparty of creating birtherism. Interesting accusation, since Hillary Clinton has never been associated with the Tea Party, yet it was her campaign that got the rumors rolling. They were easy enough rumors to start, since Michelle Obama says her husband's home country is Kenya. She was saying that well before Barack Hussein Obama was nominated and references to those words can now only be found on YouTube.Com, since those words have been erased from every transcript.

Candidate Obama claimed to have been conceived at the time of the famous Selma, Alabama march. An event that happened about four years after his Hawaii birth certificate says that he was born.

In 2004 there was this news item:

Sunday, June 27, 2004

Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate

Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations.

The allegations that horrified fellow Republicans and caused his once-promising candidacy to implode in four short days have given Obama a clear lead as Republicans struggled to fetch an alternative.

Ryan’s campaign began to crumble on Monday following the release of embarrassing records from his divorce. In the records, his ex-wife, Boston Public actress Jeri Ryan, said her former husband took her to kinky sex clubs in Paris, New York and New Orleans.

To Socialists like Garafalo and Olberman, every contradiction is the fault of their political opponents. The term "racism" has been reduced to opposing a Socialist agenda and a Socialist president.

I visited this discussion earlier with this video.

Crony Capitalism vs. Free Market

2012-02-26T14:48:00.000-05:00

Faux Hair and Faux Diamonds

Crony Capitalism is to Free-Market as Faux Diamond is to gemstones.

Capitalism, in its general usage today, means the same thing as crony capitalism. There is nothing Free-Market about it. Granting a government power to make special fiscal favors serves no function in a Free-Market system, it is anti-Free-Market.

Also note, when a Socialist spews a 'definition' of Free-Market, rest assured that it will be the definition of a perfect market, not a Free-Market. A Free-Market does not assume instant, perfect information for all. Arbitrage exists in a Free-Market, it is impossible in a Perfect Market.

Goldberg vs. Welch

2012-02-22T08:18:00.000-05:00

A debate about Libertarian vs. Conservative at the American Enterprise Institute between Matt Welch, of Reason magazine, and Jonah Goldberg of National Review.

NBC Lies About Guns - Reloaded

2012-02-21T21:21:00.001-05:00

Obama's Plans for Church and School?

2012-02-15T08:24:00.000-05:00

Lunch nazis on the attack

A North Carolina preschooler this week got a taste of the brave new school-lunch world.

As the 4-year-old entered the lunchroom, the state lunch inspector (!!) examined her sack and found the contents to be in violation of US Department of Agriculture nutrition guidelines. Herr Lunch Lady summarily threw the offending meal — including a homemade turkey sandwich, banana, chips and apple juice — into the trash; the girl was given a school-lunch meal consisting of . . . chicken nuggets.

The Left has been "warning" us about National Socialism (they call all of that fascism) for ages. The problem is, they never bother warning anybody when they do it themselves.

The story above, even by the most generous Leftist definition, is National Socialism. Some government bureaucrat took a four year old child's lunch away, "gave" the child some government approved, commercially produced, chicken nuggets. Then the government school employees sent the mother a bill for the Obama's chicken nuggets.

The Leftists would have us believe that some "corporation" forced the government to do this. Now, just how plausible is that when the government controls the police force? More to the point, now that "the right people" like Obama are in charge, why is this sort of thing on the increase?

Within days of that incident, President Barrack Hussein Obama announced that all places of worship would be required (forced) to provide contraceptives and abortions, regardless of their objection against birth control.

Obama birth control plan angers church Roman Catholic church angry after US president orders it to offer its employees free contraceptive coverage. - Aljazeera

In the 1930s, Hitler tried to nationalize churches too. In case you are unaware of what that means, Hitler (with Ludwig Müller) tried to tell various religions what they were to do for the National Socialist State. It did not work out so well. Also, if that is supposed to be evidence that Hitler was a Christian in his adult life, then absolutely anything counts as evidence of, well, absolutely anything these days.

Obama's most recent attempt at directly nationalizing places of worship failed too, but he had a backup plan at the ready. He ordered all insurance companies to provide contraceptives, including those owned and operated by Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic organizations that service only those religious institutions.

Again, an adage about the Socialists is appropriate here, they like word games. When they got enough resistance from infringing on religious freedom, they targeted federally required insurance programs and *poof* they are no longer ordering Mosques what to do, they are only telling insurance companies what to do. Either way, it is still National Socialism and this episode is definitely Hitlerian.

So, what is next in the Obama regime's goose-stepping march over individual rights on the way to the next election? One can speculate something along these lines for school lunches. Of course, that is not ordering people what to do, it is just providing much needed birth control for preschoolers. If their condoms and chewable birth control pills don't work, they can always get some RU-486 at communion.

Obama actually believes that Jesus would approve of his National Socialist blending of government and religion. Here is a clip of him at the National Prayer Breakfast, February 3rd, 2012: (full transcript | Download Video: mp4 (216MB) | mp3 (21MB))

But while I petition God for a whole range of things, there are a few common themes that do recur. The first category of prayer comes out of the urgency of the Old Testament prophets and the Gospel itself. I pray for my ability to help those who are struggling. Christian tradition teaches that one day the world will be turned right side up and everything will return as it should be. But until that day, we're called to work on behalf of a God that chose justice and mercy and compassion to the most vulnerable.

We've seen a lot of hardship these past two years. Not a day passes when I don't get a letter from somebody or meet someone who’s out of work or lost their home or without health care. The story Randall told about his father -- that's a story that a whole lot of Americans have gone through over these past couple of years.

Sometimes I can't help right away. Sometimes what I can do to try to improve the economy or to curb foreclosures or to help deal with the health care system -- sometimes it seems so distant and so remote, so profoundly inadequate to the enormity of the need. And it is my faith, then, that biblical injunction to serve the least of these, that keeps me going and that keeps me from being overwhelmed. It’s faith that reminds me that despite being just one very imperfect man, I can still help whoever I can, however I can, wherever I can, for as long as I can, and that somehow God will buttress these efforts.

Liberal Fascists Gone Wild: Janeane Garofalo/Thaddeus Matthews Edition

2012-02-07T15:23:00.001-05:00

Okay, I will relent a little on Jonah Goldberg's usage of "fascist". The offensive anti-freedom people depicted in this video do fit a little more in the Mussolini mold than in the Hitler/Nazi mold, or even more Mussolini than the 1863 Democrats-lynching-Blacks in Manhattan mold. Thus the title - Liberal Fascists Gone Wild: Janeane Garofalo/Thaddeus Matthews Edition

Hat tip to: http://theothermccain.com/ for alerting me to Thaddeus Matthews.

For more on Joe Biden's racism and both Thaddeus Matthews videos, visit the Racism and Bigotry page on this blog.

Socialist Speak

2012-02-02T00:51:00.000-05:00

If mass murder is Right Wing, why do Liberals wear these guys on their t-shirts?

I have finally deciphered a key bit of Socialistspeak, as it will be called in Would You Like Borders With That Socialism.

It does not matter how Left a Socialist regime was, if they were not Stalinists they are labeled Right Wing. I know, I have said that before right here on this blog, but it deserves repeating.

When Castro eliminated unions, it was ignored. Yet another thing in the memory hole. Noticing a pattern yet? When Mao Nationalized/Socialized unions (consolidated all into one union under Mao), it was hailed. When the All-China Federation of Trade Unions was abolished in 1966, well good luck finding any comments, especially negative, online about that. When Mussolini and his Parliament instituted milder measures, this is what is said about it now?

The trade unions were also deprived of any independence and were integrated into what was called the "corporative" system. The aim (never completely achieved), inspired by medieval guilds, was to place all Italians in various professional organizations or "corporations", all of which were under clandestine governmental control.

Is it the "clandestine" part that makes National/Yellow Socialist Mussolini "Right Wing?" You will never get a Socialist to admit that. They just recite, as if their school teachers were infallible deities, that "Mussolini was a Fascist!" with the expectation that everybody agrees the Fascist party was "Right Wing."

The fact of the matter is, any provable measure used to call National Socialists "Right Wing" are all Socialist, authoritarian, totalitarian measures that are common among all Socialists, Red or Yellow.

Seriously, this is shaping up to be a mental disorder and Liberal Arts departments around the world are spreading the disease. Witness what passes to be a scholarly critique of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism (order from link at the left), by none other than the George Mason University History News Network. Full article at the link, I will examine one little bit here:

Professor Robert Paxton

Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - 14:27
The Scholarly Flaws of "Liberal Fascism"

Robert Paxton is emeritus professor of history at Columbia University. His latest book is Anatomy of Fascism (Vintage, 2005).

Jonah Goldberg knows that making the Progressives, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and FDR the creators of an American fascism – indeed the only American fascism, for George Lincoln Rockwell and other overt American fascist or Nazi sympathizers are totally absent from this book – is a stretch, so he has created a new box: Liberal Fascism.

National Socialist George Lincoln Rockwell

Jonah left George Lincoln Rockwell out of his book (taking this on faith, my copy is not here with me at Starbucks), but I will not be leaving him out of my book. It appears that Professor Paxton has written at least one book, so he should know that there is not an infinite amount of room to include every instance and example into one volume. Current National Socialists are indeed Socialist and they are open and proud about this fact, just as Hitler was. Just listen to Hitler in this subtitled video:

The article really deserves a Fisking, but I will not bore you with that here. A complete book on the topic of Yellow/National Socialism being a true flavor of Socialism could be written just off of this article. Here is the main part I wanted to talk about here:

Communists voted with me, not against me.

Goldberg simply omits those parts of fascist history that fit badly with his demonstration. His method is to examine fascist rhetoric, but to ignore how fascist movements functioned in practice. Since the Nazis recruited their first mass following among the economic and social losers of Weimar Germany, they could sound anti-capitalist at the beginning.

Which is what they were throughout their existence. Which is why the Red Socialists (Communists) voted with them, on orders from Stalin.

Goldberg makes a big thing of the early programs of the Nazi and Italian Fascist Parties, and publishes the Nazi Twenty-five Points as an appendix. A closer look would show that the Nazis’ anti-capitalism was a selective affair, opposed to international capital and finance capital, department stores and Jewish businesses, but nowhere opposed to private property per se or favorable to a transfer of all the means of production to public ownership.

Any honest look at the National Socialist Worker's Party Twenty-five Points shows that the party aims at taking the means of production out of the hands of private ownership and have the government run things. After they were elected, they delivered on those promises. All National Socialist movements, then and now, promise to take private businesses and have the government run them. Hillary Rodham Clinton said the same things in her campaign against Barack Hussein Obama, and Obama delivered National Socialism to the energy, automobile and healthcare industries.

Note what The National Socialist German Worker's Party says about the arms industry in that very document. This is not to say that it is full of racism and bigotry, it has that in spades too. However, nobody can point to a free market item in the Twenty-five Points.

He belongs on t-shirts next to Lenin

Here is another gem:

Having headlined the violent history of “liberalism,” Goldberg soft-pedals that of fascists, especially Mussolini. There are the ritual references to Auschwitz, but he denies that racial extermination is integral to Nazism by noting how many Progressive reformers fell for Eugenics in the early twentieth century.

NO! Goldberg never asserted any such thing, but it reveals the Leftist writer's bias of Professor Paxton. Goldberg, in print and on the stump, said that if you want to focus on genocide, then call that "Hitlerism" or something else, (I am comfortable with calling it Naziism myself) because the Nazis and the Vici were the only National Socialists (some call them fascists) doing that. Maybe Professor Paxton regularly confuses Franco with Mussolini with Hitler with whomever was running Vici France. Also, Goldberg addresses the Progressives as pre-fascist, he does not ignore it a bit.

His Mussolini – that lifelong “man of the left – is seen largely through the eyes of his many foolish American admirers. Che Guevara killed more people than Mussolini, he asserts (p. 194). This is possible only if one leaves out of the picture the murder of over a thousand Italian citizens by the squadristi who brought Mussolini to the brink of power in 1922, or of the Italians’ use of poison gas, forced displacement into camps, and aerial strafing against the populations of Libya and Ethiopia.

Finally, a detail I can use in my book that I was unaware of, but the pissing contest over who was a worse despot is pretty petty. The throngs of Left Liberals who sport Che t-shirts should be evidence enough that murder is indeed a Liberal value. Liberal Leftist Socialist Mussolini did it, and I will concede to Paxton that Che tried to eclipse it. How is this any evidence at all that Mussolini was not a creature of the Left?

Soviet ally Nasser of Egypt used chemical weapons in Yemen throughout the 1960s and into 1970s, a history is still easy to find. Does that make the Soviets National Socialists of the 'Right Wing?' Lenin murdered more people than Mussolini, Che and Fidel combined. Is that what makes Lenin a person of the Left, his murders? So Hitler murdered more than all for of the just mentioned people and Stalin beat that in just Ukrainians and Mao beat them all. Seriously, the Leftists need to stop bringing up any murders in their 'evidence' against Yellow Socialism.

Face it Leftists, Mussolini and Hitler belong to you, not us.

Another Memory Hole: The Buchanan Committee

2012-02-01T05:29:00.000-05:00

Congressman Frank Buchanan

Did you ever hear of the House of Representatives Buchanan Committee aka United States House Select Committee on Lobbying Activities? What about one by Clinton Anderson in 1944? I hadn't either until the great Brian Doherty of Reason informed me of its existence during a Book TV interview with Doug Bandow of the CATO institute. You can find a link to Doherty's book Radicals for Capitalism in the left column of this page.

What was the Buchanan Committee? It was a 1950s congressional committee to suppress freedom Franklin Delano Roosevelt style. In this case, any speaking against the government, not unlike similar activities during the Wilson administration.

Good luck finding out much about it. For some reason, anything that does not fit the Socialist narrative either fails to emerge in WikiPedia and gets deleted from YouTube. Compare to the McCarthy hearings where every single person called before the joint House and Senate Committee was in fact guilty as sin, but not a one of them spent a day in jail and none were falsely maligned. If you do not believe that last sentence, then produce one. Nobody can, but that does not stop Leftists from claiming that there were. After the release of the Venona Decrypts and the Soviet Archives, every single person who appeared before McCarthy, Kennedy, and Nixon has been confirmed as working for Stalin's Soviet Union.

One of the only places to find information on this Liberal Fascist commission is at TheFreeManOnline.Org. (Italics and links mine)

The Day FEE Was Called before Congress

After a failed effort to set up a Senate-House joint committee, the House assigned the investigation to a committee led by Rep. Frank Buchanan of Pennsylvania. Buchanan was not only a stalwart Fair Dealer but had his own axe to grind because the CCG (Committee for Constitutional Government) had successfully fought expanded public housing, a goal he had championed. He defined lobbying in the broadest possible terms to include groups that had an indirect influence on the formation of public opinion. The committee sent out a probing questionnaire to 166 businesses and organizations, most of them opponents of the Fair Deal. The Buchanan committee ignored lobbying by government agencies, but perhaps for the sake of balance a questionnaire also went to the Civil Rights Congress, an organization with close ties to the Communist Party.

When Buchanan’s staffers, armed with a dragnet subpoena, arrived in force at FEE’s (Foundation for Economic Education) headquarters in early 1949, Read reluctantly cooperated. It became readily apparent to him, however, that the investigators were leaving no stone unturned in the hope of finding something—anything—to discredit the organization. It was also clear that the committee had formed a working alliance with key New Deal interest groups and journalists. Almost immediately after the committee rummaged through FEE’s offices, someone leaked the information to Drew Pearson. Pearson’s column publicized the best-known names on FEE’s “secret” contributor list and quoted liberally from internal correspondence. Mullendore expressed his outrage about the leak in a letter to Buchanan: “Those who seek to extend the power of government try to close the mouths of citizens who dare to oppose them. . . . Your inquisitorial and extremely burdensome demand for information which you have no moral right to demand is a most alarming example of the use of this means of intimidation.”

Read the whole thing. Some of the names mentioned are researchable. Fair warning, if you think the MSM has a left bias, just wait until you read this stuff.

The Socialist ~~Workers~~ Writers at the Village Voice made mention of the CGC once, in 2010, while praising a Marxist takeover of the Albany Senate. Note: it was really a Democrat takeover, but leave it to the Village Voice to wordsmythe it into a second coming of Lenin. Beyond that, it is difficult to find anything about the group that committed the sin of opposing oppressive government regulation.

Leading up to this was an FDR tactic, later to only be mentioned in articles about Richard M. Nixon, the Treasury Department was ordered directly by the President (FDR) to "audit" newspaper publisher Moses Annenberg, and others who were vocally against the New Deal, even after major portions of it like the National Recovery Act (NRA) were ruled unconstitutional and FDR advocated packing the United States Supreme Court with National Socialism friendly Justices.

How, seriously, do the Socialists get away Scott free with these shenanigans?

60 Minutes Finds A Way To Criticize Red China

2012-01-31T13:40:00.000-05:00

Fashionista Vladimir Lenin

Socialists (National, International, Liberal Leftists, etc) really have no core values beyond fashion. It was true under Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Владимир Ильич Ленин) and it is still true today.

60 Minutes' Leslie Stahl

In this installment, witness what has 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl all a twitter (aired Jan. 8, 2012). Is it how 'unfair' it is that the poorest children in Africa or Detroit cannot afford a succulent Italian truffle? No. Is it unfairness to pigs that they no longer get to munch on Italian white truffles, being replaced by slave dogs? No. She and her producers are upset that Chinese white truffles do not taste as good as Italian truffles:

In the video you can see a Red army of Chinese slaves raking up truffles, digging the ground with bamboo rakes, to find any truffle for their masters to sell in the free world. The 60 Minutes team does not complain about the working conditions of the Chinese slaves, they only complain that the product flooding Europe is inferior in taste and aroma to Italian truffles. Those evil, crafty Chinese, messing up the plates of wealthy White Liberals around the world!

The story centers around a truffle mafia, mean people who go about stealing good truffles from honest truffle merchants. Of course, stealing is still against the law in all of Europe, but they bandy about more laws to cure the problem.

Folks, there has been a cure to this problem throughout the ages and it involves very little government involvement. The Europeans even invented a phrase for it: Caveat emptor ( /ˌ k æ v iː ɑː t ˈ ɛ m p t ɔr /) or buyer beware. It does not only apply to purchasing real property, it is especially valuable for the purchase of personal property, like truffles.

Even the libertarian philosophy allows for remedies to such skullduggery as passing off Chinese truffles for Italian truffles. Misrepresentation of product is a libertarian sin that should land anybody practicing it in court. The type of court is always a subject of debate in libertarian circles, criminal vs. civil, but there is no argument that it should be illegal to do such things.

Italian truffle babe Olga Urbani with Leslie Stahl

In the 60 Minutes piece there is not a mention by the attractive, fur coat draped, Italian truffle distributor about how she plans to stop buying from shady sellers. No, she wants some sort of government solution to parachute in so that she does not need to examine her purchases. National Socialism is still alive in Italy and France, coming soon to a truffle near you.

National Socialists Are Keynesian

2012-01-25T15:27:00.000-05:00

Sexy Nazi

The title should be no surprise to anybody who knows what National Socialists are or what Keynesian Economics is all about.

Let me qualify that a bit. The Italian and German National Socialists rose to power with the use of Keynesian Economics before John Maynard Keynes finished explaining his vision of the economic world. Of course, as with all massive government programs, the Nazis and Fascists took off in completely different directions from any that resembled what brought them to power.Here is Hitler in his own words via the American Nazi Party:

As you can read in the subtitles, Hitler tells corporations that they will be left alone as long as they play along and do as they are told. Don't take my word for it, look for yourself. Everything in his speech is Keynesian and Socialistic. If you think the Hitlerian National Socialists of today are any different, guess again.

John Maynard Keynes

As far as the German National Socialists go, what did they do when they took over the country? They started big public works monuments to government, like the Autobahn. Here is a WikiPedia passage that highlights a few of them:

Nazis came to power in the midst of the Great Depression. When the Nazis came to power the most pressing issue was an unemployment rate of close to 30%.[18] Before World War II, Hitler appointed Hjalmar Schacht, a former member of the German Democratic Party, as President of the Reichsbank in 1933 and Minister of Economics in 1934. [18]

At first, Schacht continued the economic policies introduced by the government of Kurt von Schleicher in 1932 to combat the effects of the Great Depression. These policies were mostly Keynesian, relying on large public works programs supported by deficit spending — such as the construction of the Autobahn network — to stimulate the economy and reduce unemployment. There was major reduction in unemployment over the following years, while price controls prevented the recurrence of inflation. The economic policies of the Third Reich were in the beginning the brainchildren of Schacht, who assumed office as president of the central bank under Hitler in 1933, and became finance minister in the following year. Schacht was one of the few finance ministers to take advantage of the freedom provided by the end of the gold standard to keep interest rates low and government budget deficits high, with massive public works funded by large budget deficits.[18] The consequence was an extremely rapid decline in unemployment—the most rapid decline in unemployment in any country during the Great Depression.[18] Eventually this Keynesian economic policy was supplemented by the boost to demand provided by rearmament and swelling military spending.

The last sentence in that passage is quite misleading. Military spending is government spending and really is just part of a Keynesian framework, especially in an era where the Left found militarism appealing.

Socialist Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini

So, what of the Italian National Socialists, Mussolini's Fascists?

The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity. The Fascist State with its corporative conception puts men and their possibilities into productive work and interprets for them the duties they have to fulfill. (p. 280) - Mussolini, Benito. My Autobiography. New York: Scribner’s, 1928 (via econlib.org)

Remember, whenever anybody tries to tell you that National Socialists are/were something other than collectivist socialists, they are lying.

The same folk will try to tell you that it was the 'corporations' dishing out the power to Mussolini and Hitler. Think for a moment, just who had the police power? Mussolini or Fiat?

World Freedom Day

2012-01-23T12:24:00.000-05:00

This year, 23 JAN 2012 happens to be both Chinese New Year and World Freedom Day. If you thought World Freedom Day was in November, then you may be as new to this celebration of freedom thing as is president Obama.

For my fellow Americans, it is easy to be unaware of the day when China and South Korea celebrate the 1954 repatriation of 14,000 Chinese prisoners of the Korean War. 22,600 Communist soldiers total refused to return to Communist People's Republic of China or to Communist North Korea and instead requested repatriation to the Republic of China or to South Korea. 14,000 of them were Chinese and they formed the "Anti-Communist League" after arriving in free Taiwan. (Note: 86 chose India over China)

People like Noam Chomsky may toss out the true but still misleading trivia that soldiers of both sides refused repatriation to the countries they were fighting for, just like he did in his famous 1960s "Firing Line" appearance that I like to call his "which way did those refugees go" moment. During the first installment of the Korean War, 22 American Soldiers and on British soldier refused repatriation too. Thus, to folks like Noam Chomsky who say "refugees went both ways" later in Vietnam, the 1,000-1 ratio is meaningless. Just as the 7-1 ratio of those fleeing North Vietnam to those leaving the South is no issue. The issue to them is that somebody went to the Communists. A list of the 22 from WikiPedia is copied at the bottom of this post. Not the fate of each, when they were returned to freedom.

Here is a video about the UN forces who refused repatriation, known as the Turncoats, that passes itself as a documentary. Any reasonable assessment is that it is modern Communist Chinese propaganda. One of the keys is their referring to the Chinese Red Army as volunteers, when in fact they were conscripts. The propaganda so preposterous that the truth shines through the lies, especially in clips of the Turncoats who spoke of how things changed in China after their propaganda value ended. I add it in the interest of fairness. Speaking of "fairness," the video notes the Courts Martial and sentencing of two Americans who returned and were convicted of Treason. The video mentions their sentencing, but not that they did not serve a single day in jail after their trials. See the Wiki information farther down.

See more in parts two, three, four, and five. This series of videos will be the subject of another post and this general issue will be covered in great detail in Would You Like Borders With That Socialism?

On the other hand, people like president Obama seem to have deep seated reasons for not recognizing the free zone of China. In September, 2009 the Communist Chinese were celebrating the 60th anniversary of Maoist Stalinism on the Ellipse,with the White House as a backdrop.

Since the 1954 POW exchange there has been the occasional American service member who defected to North Korea, not unlike college students and others who decide to get involved with terrorist causes, Communist or not.

Six American servicemen are known to have defected to North Korea after the war:

United Nations Service Members who defected during the first installment of the Korean War (via WikiPedia):

American
Adams, Clarence (Cpl.)
A soldier from Memphis, Tennessee. Adams cited racial discrimination in the United States as the reason he refused repatriation. While a prisoner, Adams took classes in Communist political theory, and afterwards lectured other prisoners in the camps. During the Vietnam War, Adams made propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi from their Chinese office, telling black American soldiers not to fight:
You are supposedly fighting for the freedom of the Vietnamese, but what kind of freedom do you have at home, sitting in the back of the bus, being barred from restaurants, stores and certain neighborhoods, and being denied the right to vote. ... Go home and fight for equality in America.
He married a Chinese woman and lived in China until the increasingly anti-Western atmosphere of the Cultural Revolution led him to return to the United States in 1966. Adams was charged with treason by the House Un-American Activities Committee, but charges were dismissed.^[2] He later started a Chinese restaurant business in Memphis. Clarence Adams died in 1999. His autobiography An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China was posthumously published in 2007 by his daughter Della Adams and Lewis H. Carlson.^[3]
Adams, Howard (Sgt.)
From Corsicana, Texas.^[4] He worked in a paper factory in Jinan, China.^[4] He refused all media requests for interviews.^[5]
Belhomme, Albert Constant (Sgt.)
A native of Belgium who immigrated to the United States as a teenager. He lived in China for ten years, working in a paper factory in Jinan, before returning to Antwerp, Belgium.^[5]^[4]
Bell, Otho Grayson (Cpl.)
Originally from Olympia, Washington.^[4] In China was sent to a collective farm with William Cowart and Lewis Griggs (see below). Bell described himself, Cowart and Griggs as "the dummy bunch", saying they were sent to the farm because they could not learn Chinese. They returned to the United States together in July 1955, were arrested, but were released when it was found that the military no longer had jurisdiction over the defectors after they were dishonorably discharged. Bell died in 2003.^[5]
Corden, Richard (Sgt.)
A native of Chicago, Illinois. He returned to the United States on 19 January, 1958. He was reported to live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1961 and moved to Chicago in 1962.^[4] He reportedly continued to favor communism even after returning to the United States.^[5] He died in 1988.
Cowart, William (Cpl.)
Returned with Bell and Griggs. Later the three soldiers sued for their back pay. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which held that Bell, Cowart and Griggs were entitled to their back pay from the time they were captured to the time they were dishonorably discharged.^[6]
Douglas, Rufus (Sgt.)
Died in China a few months after arrival in 1954. The manner of his death is not certain but is believed to have been from natural causes.^[5]
Dunn, John Roedel (Cpl.)
From Altoona, Pennsylvania.^[4] He married a Czechoslovakian woman while in China and settled in Czechoslovakia in December 1959.^[4]^[5]
Fortuna, Andrew (Sgt.)
Originally from Greenup, Kentucky.^[4] He was awarded two Bronze Stars for his service in Korea before he was captured.^[5] He returned to the United States on July 3, 1957. He worked in Portsmouth, Ohio in 1958, in Detroit, Michigan from 1963-64 and Chicago in 1964. He was reported to be in Gary, Indiana as of 1964.^[4] He died in 1984.^[5]
Griggs, Lewis Wayne
Returned with Bell and Cowart in 1955. He was listed as a senior majoring in sociology at Stephen F. Austin State University, graduating in 1959.^[7]^[8] He died in 1984.
Hawkins, Samuel David (Pfc.)
From Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He married a Russian woman in China and returned to the United States in February 1957, shortly before his wife was permitted to come to the United States. He successfully petitioned the government to change his discharge from dishonorable to other than honorable. He raised a family, and has given interviews to the press on the condition that his location not be disclosed.^[5]
Pate, Arlie (Cpl.)
Worked in a paper mill before returning with Aaron Wilson (see below) in 1956. He died in 1999.^[5]
Rush, Scott (Sgt.)
Married in China. After living in China ten years, he and his wife moved back to the United States and settled in the Midwest.^[5]
Skinner, Lowell (Cpl. )
His mother begged him to come home over the radio at the time of the prisoner exchange, to no avail. He married in China, but left his wife behind when he came back to America in 1963. Later he would have problems with alcohol and spent six months in a psychiatric hospital. He died in 1995.^[9]
Sullivan, LaRance
Came home in 1958 and died in 2001.^[5]
Tenneson, Richard (Pfc.)
Came home in 1955. He went to Louisiana a few months later to welcome home fellow defector Aaron Wilson (see below). He settled in Utah before dying in 2001.^[5]
Veneris, James (Pvt.)
From Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. ^[4] He stayed in China and became a dedicated communist, taking the Chinese name 'Lao Wen'. He worked in a steel mill, participated in the Great Leap Forward, hung posters during the Cultural Revolution, married three times, and had children. He visited the United States in 1976 but returned to China, where he is buried.^[10]
Webb, Harold (Sgt.)
From Jacksonville, Florida^[4]. He married a Polish woman in China and moved to Poland in 1960, reportedly settling in Katowice.^[4]^[5] In 1988, he was given permission to settle in the United States.^[5] He is the subject of the Youth Defense League song Turncoat about rejection of a Korean War defector seeking a return to America.^[11]
White, William (Cpl.)
Married and got a bachelor's degree in international law while in China. He returned to the United States in 1965.^[5]
Wills, Morris (Cpl.)
From Fort Ann, New York.^[4] He played basketball for Peking University and got married in China. He came back to America in 1965 and got a job in the Asian Studies Department at Harvard University. His autobiography, Turncoat: An American's 12 Years in Communist China, was published in 1966. He died in 1999.^[5]
Wilson, Aaron (Cpl.)
Originally from Urania, Louisiana.^[4] He came home from China 06 December 1956^[4]. Wilson married an American girl and worked in his Louisianahometown's mill.^[5]
[edit]British
Condron, Andrew (Marine)
Scotsman of 41 (Independent) Royal Marine Commando, was the only Briton to decline repatriation. He returned to Britain in 1960, and faced no disciplinary action.

Asians For Sale! The New York Times Suggests A Price For Asian Women (And Men)

2012-01-11T13:59:00.000-05:00

Updated 12 JAN 2012 with video (at bottom).

The price that the New York Times is urging the Obama administration to sell the people of Taiwan to mainland China for is $49,793.8708 per person. The only thing Leftists, including their Communist faction, care about is money. In this case, the New York Times agitates for selling almost 23 Million people into slavery for the sum of $1.14 trillion. If you think the NYT is trying to deflect criticism by sticking a former Marine on this topic, you are probably right. That is another favorite tactic of the Left, see John F. Kerry (he served in Vietnam) and others.

Slaver Paul V. Kane

Op-Ed Contributor
To Save Our Economy, Ditch Taiwan
By PAUL V. KANE
Published: November 10, 2011

. . . There are dozens of initiatives President Obama could undertake to strengthen our economic security. Here is one: He should enter into closed-door negotiations with Chinese leaders to write off the $1.14 trillion of American debt currently held by China in exchange for a deal to end American military assistance and arms sales to Taiwan and terminate the current United States-Taiwan defense arrangement by 2015.

This would be a most precious prize to the cautious men in Beijing, one they would give dearly to achieve. After all, our relationship with Taiwan, as revised in 1979, is a vestige of the cold war.. . .

The NYT vision of Taiwan's future.

That was just the money quote. More at the link. So the New York Times, along with this former Marine of indeterminate rank, have placed the price of $49,793.8708 on the lives and livelihoods of 22,894,384 living people, with a proposal to sell them into the slavery of Communism.

Yes, the same New York Times that employs Thomas Friedman, regular agitator for the mainland Chinese version of "capitalism", which resembles most closely the National Socialism of Adolph Hitler, with a higher death toll.

What has happened since the days of 1863 when Henry Raymond manned a Gatling Gun to defend the paper against rioting pro-slavery Democrats? Nothing good, I assure you.

Update: I do not recognize Paul V. Kane in this video, allegedly of Marines urinating on corpses in Afghanistan. I am not yet convinced that it is authentic either.

If you want to piss on corpses, piss on these.

Newt Gingrich: The Liberal Fascist H.G. Wells Was Waiting For

2012-01-02T11:12:00.001-05:00

The original Progressive laughing.

Reason had a good article the other day tracing Newt Gingrich's ideas on how to manipulate the US court system to those of the Progressives of the past. It is worth the read.

A Liberal Fascist laughing.

An even better read is from a little earlier than that at National Review. Mark Steyn spends four wonderful pages recalling Gingrich's comments about himself and plots involving massive government expense. High speed maglev rail is kid stuff compared to what this National Socialist superman has in mind for the federal treasury ant your hip pocket. This in particular Romney quote about Gingrich caught my eye (emphasis mine):

Vote for Newt and work with me in the mines.
With his numbers sinking, Mitt was driven to go negative. Asked where his policies differed from Gingrich’s, Romney cut to the chase: “We could start with his idea to have a lunar colony that would mine minerals from the moon.” You can’t tell the players without a scorecard, folks. Both leading conservative candidates have supported government mandates on health care. Both leading conservative candidates have supported massive expansion of entitlements. But they differ on the critical issue of whether we should use large numbers of welfare claimants to mine unpasteurized green cheese from the dark side of the moon. To be fair to Gingrich, he’s generally sounder on economic issues than Romney: Mitt’s reforms would leave us with a corporate-tax rate twice as high as Newt’s, and, in contrast to the Gingrich abolition of taxes on capital gains, Romney is proposing to end them only for those making under $200,000 because it would be wrong to “spend our precious tax dollars for a tax cut.” When “conservatives” think tax cuts are government “spending,” who needs Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank?

If you think Steyn and Romney are puffing a bit, let's cut to the video of Newt defending his moon mining idea, straight from a Jules Verne novel:

Of course, now it is "for the children". Children who saw the original Star Trek, or the reruns, and thought that the government could send rescue workers through a transporter to the Louisiana Superdome in the aftermath of hurricane Kartrina can dream of working beside sexy moon maidens, or for them.

Mining the moon with the technology we have today carries with it an incredibly negative return on expenditure, especially as a public works project. If government would just get out of the way (including their habit of picking favorites with tax dollars), then the free market will find a way to visit heavenly bodies and extract marketable material for use wherever people want to use it, when it is practical to do so..

In the 1930s, H. G. Wells coined the term Liberal Fascism:

H.G. Wells's ‘Liberal Fascism’

Philip Coupland

Abstract

During the 1930s H.G. Wells's theory of revolutionary praxis centred around a concept of ‘liberal fascism’ whereby the Wellsian ‘liberal’ utopia would be achieved by an authoritarian élite. Taking inspiration from the militarized political movements of the 1930s, this marked a development in the Wellsian theory of revolution from the ‘open conspiracy’ of the 1920s. Although both communist and fascist movements evinced some of the desired qualities of a Wellsian vanguard, it was fascism rather than communism which came closest to Wells's ideal. However, in practice, despite the failure of approaches to parties of the left and centre as possible agents of revolution, Wells rejected the British Union of Fascists. The disparity between Wells's theory and his actions when faced by the reality of fascism echoes the unresolved tension between ends and means at the heart of the concept of ‘liberal fascism’.

Jonah Goldberg of National Review rediscovered the phrase and used it to title a book about the liberal roots of both fascism (National Socialism) and Progressiveism. I now own the domain Liberal-Fascism.Com.

The more Newt Gingrich talks, the more he fits the mold of the Wellsian Liberal Fascist Superman to swoop down and save us all with technology, backed by massive monuments to government.

Interestingly enough, Newt Gingrich is quoted as commenting on Goldberg's book here:

Of the book former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says: 'Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism will enrage many people on the left, but his dire thesis deserves serious attention.... Goldberg will lead you to new understanding and force you to think deeply.' Following Goldberg's remarks, a panel of experts will present their commentary on the book.

Maybe if he actually read the book he might have used different words.

See the video of Jonah Goldberg on Fora.tv:

Ron Paul: Politician, Obstetrician, Gynecologist, and Zionologist

2011-12-28T09:26:00.000-05:00

This is what a Zionologist looks like.

If it is a new election cycle, it is a new round of Dr. Ron Paul controversy. By far the most popular one is the alleged racism towards Blacks by the House of Representatives member for Texas, an issue that crops up like clockwork every four years. Another is the growing evidence of Ron Paul's thinly veiled antisemitism.

Gun toting Socialist, David Weigel

This post is not so much about Paul's racism as much as it is about the antisemitism. David Weigel of Slate produced some historical evidence linking Paul to racist comments in his news letter and he has been following this issue for several years. If you did not know, Weigel is a fired Reason staffer who interviewed Ron Paul in 2007 about his 9/11 Trutherism. In the comments of that article one Eric Dondero, now a source about Ron Paul's alleged lack of racism in almost every blog besides Reason's, claims to have been given a $10,000 bonus by the Ron Paul machine before departing and clams that he was not fired (this was the first link in the Eric Dondero search of the Reason blog). Ron Paul's office has been claiming for years that Dondero was fired. If you want to know more about Ron Paul and his decades long bigotry controversies, please point your favorite search engine in that direction. This post ties Ron Paul to Zionology. Not as a pioneer or researcher, more as an evangelist and it matters little if he is a knowing or unknowing practitioner.

The practice of Zionology, also known as Soviet Anti-Zionism, appears to have originated in the Ukraine. The brief Wikipedia article on the topic currently describes it as:

Soviet Anti-Zionism was a doctrine promulgated in the Soviet Union during the course of the Cold War, and intensified after the 1967 Six Day War. It was officially sponsored by the Department of propaganda of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and by the KGB. It alleged that Zionism was a form of racism and sometimes argued that Zionists were similar to Nazis. The Soviet Union was officially opposed to racism of any kind, and therefore Zionologists stated that they were not anti-Semitic or racist themselves.

The way this has played out over the years is similar to the Stalinist Soviet view that National Socialism is Right Wing, a falsehood which over 90% of the people educated in the West since World War II believe. In the same repetitive manner, Soviet attacks on Israel took on a life of their own through the Stalinist fellow travelers in the commanding heights of western society, eventually adopted by many who wanted to shoehorn Jews in as a scapegoat for any conspiracy that they saw.

Remember, true Conservatives tend to use descriptive words when they speak and Socialists tend to use codewords. Socialists love to accuse people of using codewords just to call them names, or to make some false point of faith with a 'bonus' of smearing a Conservative at the same time. Examples like "individual choice is code for racial discrimination" do not come from people who abstain from codewording, it comes from those who engage in the practice. When you hear people complain about: The Israeli Lobby, Neo-Conservatives, Zionists, and similar, you can bet these people are engaged in codetalking to veil their antisemitism.

How does this relate to Dr. Paul? Quite simply he uses all the right words along with the tactic of emboldening any antisemitic group that comes along. Just see his comments on Israel vs. his comments toward Iran on very similar issues.

In a June 2011 interview with Don Imus, Ron Paul defends terrorist group Hamas, a country with a charter that calls for the destruction of Israel. Paul attacks Israel for defending itself in a war that Hamas started. The subject of the exchange is the legal intercept of a ship trying to run Israel's legal Gaza blockade.

Throughout the interview, Ron Paul ignores the fact that the blockade was a joint effort between Egypt and Israel gets his blame for everything.

Ron Paul thinks Hamas are the nice guys.

He opens with some non-interventionist boilerplate and then says that we have every right to intervene against Israel, justifying it with a short list of military hardware that was made in the United States. Not one word about aid to Gaza's Hamas terrorist government. The first paragraph of the Hamas charter for Gaza calls for the destruction of Israel and Ron Paul says that Israel created Hamas. This echoes the Soviet client state relationships during the Cold War, when they began claiming that Israel had no right to exist and started rumors that Israel was the secret puppet master behind every ill in the world.

As transcribed by The Right Scoop:

[Ron Paul] I think it’s absolutely wrong to prevent people that are starving and having problems that are almost like in concentration camps and saying “yes we endorse this whole concept that we can’t allow ships to go in there in a humanitarian way”.

I think it’s just terrible and I don’t think we should be part of it. Even though if we weren’t involved I would say nothing. So I think this would be a perfect opportunity to argue the case that, you know, “Israel, if you want to do this, you’re on your own. We’re not backing you up!”

To his credit, Don Imus tries to inform Dr. Paul that humanitarian aid was not being blocked by Israel. Interestingly enough, Ron Paul says not a word about Egypt's blockade of Gaza, in an alliance with Israel at the time of the interview.

When the topic is an actual act of war by another country with a dedication to destroy Israel, Dr. Paul takes a different stance, the same stance the Soviets took and their useful idiots parroted around the world during the Cold War. He says that Iran's talk of destroying Israel is just big talk and that is the way tough guys talk in that part of the world (also revealing a whole other facet of soft bigotry). Blocking the Straits of Hormuz is perfectly understandable, in the words of Paul.

Iran says they want nuclear weapons, and Ron Paul says that Iran needs them to make things equal. Now, just examine that for a moment. Iran wants nuclear weapons to "wipe Israel off the map," but Paul says that is just talk. Then Paul says that the international belligerent behind 9/11 (per US District Court, Manhattan, 23 December 2011), and funded the Hezbollah war with Israel in 2006, needs nuclear weapons to make things equal. He also condemns the only country in the region that needed a nuclear deterrent, Israel, for having nuclear weapons. Ron Paul has been warning of an American/Israeli invasion of Iran, that never happens, for ages. He uses that as his basis to debase Israel and try to gain support for those who want to wipe Jews from the earth.

Ron Paul supporters have recently begun accusing the United States of bombing Iran. They cite an article from 2003 where claims were made that a village bordering Iraq was bombed. Frequently Ron Paul sounds like these are his closest advisers.

Countries or political movements with a stated goal to destroy Israel that Ron Paul openly supports are:

Judaism Without Embellishment

Another tactic common to both the Soviets and Ron Paul is switching public positions when it suited them, just like George Orwell's 1984. In the case of Ron Paul, he comes out with occasional statements saying he supports Israel's right to exist, before going back to supporting any group that wants to incinerate all the Jews in Israel. In the case of Zionology, first the Soviets published and promoted Judaism Without Embellishment, by Trofim Kichko. When fellow travelers around the world got upset about the antisemitic contents of the book, the Soviets made an April 6, 1964 press release through their own news service, Pravda, denouncing the publication of Judaism Without Embellishment (If you have a strong stomach, you can view some of the book's illustrations here):

LONDON, Apr. 5 (JTA) –

The Ideological Commission of the Soviet Communist Party this weekend criticized the publication by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences of the anti-Semitic book, "Judaism Without Embellishment," it was reported here today from Moscow. The book, which contains anti-Jewish caricatures reminiscent of Nazi propaganda, has already been attacked by Communist parties in various Western countries.

The Soviets continued to smear Jews internally and just three years later the Soviets dusted off, published and distributed at least 12,000 copies of this antisemitic tripe labeled as science. The 'science' of Zionology was born in response to the 1967 Six-Day War. The Soviets continued their 'work' in the 'field' of Zionology, publishing other antisemitic books, including Trofim Kichko's Judaism and Zionism in 1968 without much resistance by Communists in the West. The Communists even gained a few more apologists.

Today, Ron Paul picks up the torch of Soviet Zionology and presents it to a new audience already prepared by Helen Thomas, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and of the throngs who continue to support Stalinist Socialism, as well as those who just hate Jews.

Another Soviet tactic, shared by Ron Paul, is showing off Jews in their respective camps. This has the added benefit of giving cover to anybody who wants to join in on the race to shove Jewish Israelis into the Mediterranean. Many keep forgetting that Socialists are Socialists first and Jewish, Catholic, Atheist, Pagan, or anything else, second. Socialistic Jews are no different and the Soviets capitalized on this for most of the 20th century.

This is not to say that Ron Paul is a Socialist at all, far from it. He is as far away from Socialism as one can get on fiscal issues. That said, one can still adopt the unquestionably effective tactics of Socialistic rhetoric to use against a nation full of people that you hate.

Ron Paul has been so effective at getting his Jew hate message out that he gets financial support from White Supremacists who specialize in antisemitism and all but owns the 9/11 Truthers who blame the USA and Jews for the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Much of that support gained when Ron Paul blamed the USA for the 9/11 attacks on the floor of the House of Representatives before the smoke had cleared.

Rival politicians who do not share Ron Paul's Zionology are attacked by Ron Paul for "hating Muslims." There is no evidence at all that Michelle Bachmann hates Muslims. What she does speak out against is something that Ron Paul is for, Islamic terrorist organizations that want to destroy Israel and Ron Paul translates that into Bachmann hating Muslims.

This position by Ron Paul has absolutely no basis in fact. If all of these "Muslim haters" in the US government only wanted to murder Muslims they would be paying a lot more attention to attacking the most populous Muslim nation on earth and ignoring the seat of Islamic jihad.

For more on Ron Paul's anti-Israeli history, read this.

About Those Libertarians, Take Ron Paul For Example

2011-12-25T19:32:00.000-05:00

Libertarianism is not a strange thing to most people in the United States, it is just a strange word to them. The desire to be left alone by government is widespread. However, libertarianism comes in many stripes and those who profess to be libertarians can express an odd combination of beliefs.

It is not within the libertarian ethos to have government create regulations that hinder competition, especially those that favor big businesses over smaller businesses. Conversely, it is within the libertarian philosophy to defend the nation from military attack. However, the line where defense becomes interference in the affairs of another country seems to be set in different places by different libertarians.

Judaism Without Embellishment

For example, a large portion (being conservative here) of vocal libertarians are also pacifists. Pacifist to the point of inadvertent advocation for enslavement of all under the jackboot of brutal authoritarian expansionist regimes. Like when some talk of Israel vs. Palestine and begin using Zionoligist talking points, without having ever heard of Zionology.

Now, I am not talking about 20/20 historical vision, like say, what if Abraham Lincoln had actually extended the 1862 emancipation of slaves beyond the confines of the nation's capital. Although that would have been the right thing for the Congress and the President to do, and quite expensive, there is little doubt that the States that began leaving the Union in December 1860 would have returned at that point. Of course, war could have been averted if the federal government had recognized the right of any State to secede from the Union in the first place, as was the thinking among some at least as far back as 1798, long before the secession of South Carolina. No, I am talking about wholesale rewrites of history by people who should know better and/or are banking on the fact that their listeners do not know any better either.

Which brings me to the case of Doctor Ron Paul, Republican Representative to the Congress, from Texas. In 2007, his solution for averting the American Civil War was for the Union to purchase slaves from their Southern owners. (video)

Beyond what I mentioned above, and as you probably know, the Civil War was already underway before Lincoln took office and seven States had seceded. This is far from the only case where Dr. Paul has been historically or fact challenged and it fits in with the pacifist leanings of him and his supporters.

Recently, Dr. Paul had a simple solution to the ongoing issues that Iran is having with pretty much every nation on the planet, other than China, North Korea, Venezuela and Russia. Unarguably, the greatest friction is between Iran and the countries that are within range of Iranian ballistic missiles, or will be within range in a few years. According to Dr. Paul, all President Obama needs to do is pick up the phone and call Iran, and he likens it to when President Kennedy "called Nikita Khrushchev" to avert a war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Around the 3:00 mark in the video):

Again, Dr. Paul misses a great deal of the factual historical record, like the fact that Kennedy never called Khrushchev. Here is his comment via MondoWeiss.Net:

Paul: "If she (Michelle Bachmann) thinks we live in a dangerous world, she ought to think back to when I was drafted in 1962 with the nuclear missiles in Cuba. And Kennedy calls Khrushchev and talks to him and talks him out of a nuclear excahnge (sic). You’re trying to dramatize this... we have to treat Iran like we've treated Iraq and kill a million Iraqis and 8000 some Americans have died since we've gone to war.

Shortly after the debate where Representative Paul uttered this comment, Charles Krauthammer and others began pointing out a few items Ron Paul left out. The highlights (some from me, some from the Krauthammer video, some from other places around the 'net):

- The hard evidence that the Soviets were installing nuclear tipped missiles in Cuba came partly from reconnaissance flights by U2 high altitude jets over Cuba. Part of the analysis was the similarity to the layout of the missile installation to aerial photographs taken by US reconnaissance aircraft of the same model of Soviet missiles in the USSR. These flights were by manned high altitude aircraft performing the same mission as the US drone recently captured by Iran. In the same debate, Ron Paul complained about the US "flying drones over Iran."

- Human intelligence from Cuban ex-patriots living in Miami, Florida was the first indication of offensive Soviet missiles in Cuba.

Condolence letter to Mrs. Anderson

- U2 Pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson was shot down and died over Cuba, 27 October 1962.

- Later, Kennedy ordered low level flights by Crusader jets over Cuba once every two hours. Hardly a reduction in provocative actions.

- President Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba, arguably an act of war even though the action was approved by the Organization of American States. Kennedy fell back on the typical Leftist tactic of renaming things, calling it a quarantine. Part of the quarantine terms were to board and sink, if necessary, any Soviet ships sailing to Cuba. It began 800 miles from Cuba and was later brought to within 500 miles of Cuba.

- Kennedy never picked up any phone to talk to Khrushchev! The two exchanged letters, the first sent by Khrushchev about a "serious threat to peace and security of peoples." Kennedy's letter in response laid the responsibility of the crisis squarely at the feet of the Soviets. The letter exchanges did result in a typical Leftist capitulation, the US removed missiles in Turkey in exchange for Soviet removal of missiles from Cuba. The Soviet officials that President Kennedy and his brother, the Attorney General Robert Kennedy (the president's little brother) were Ambassador Dobrynin and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.

The praise Ron Paul gives for John F. Kennedy's actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis are the same actions that he condemns even contemplating with Iran.

Congressman Paul is by far the libertarian with the highest profile in America today. He has a fantastic education and a successful son who represents Kentucky in the United States Senate. However, Ron Paul's idea of national defense is tantamount to issuing every coastal home a musket and two rounds of ammunition. His attitude is shared, or seen as somewhat hawkish, by throngs of libertarians with roots in the modern Left.

Iran is an international belligerent beyond the level of Cuba when they were marching around Africa and South America until the collapse of the Soviet Union. With Iran's training and support of Hamas and Hezbollah, they have launched direct attacks on US allies, most notably on Israel in 2006. They threaten international shipping through the Straits of Hormuz and receive the wholesale support of neo-Marxists worldwide, as well as by Ron Paul. In another post I plan to outline Dr. Paul's ideological alliance with the hard Left and Palestinian terrorists. Note that Ron Paul is charging Israel with "acts of war" that he ignores in his Kennedy praise.

One tactic that both Marxist and some libertarians use is the "elected government" excuse, i.e., Gaza elected Hamas as their government, therefore Hamas can do whatever it likes. Well libertarians, I ask you, whatever it likes to whom? For one thing, the first acts the Gaza government did (after Israel gave the Gaza strip to them) was to refuse to acknowledge Israel as a legitimate government and then declared war on Israel. Somehow, the Ron Paul libertarians miss these little historic fact points and jump to the declaration that Israel is committing an act of war by enforcing a weapons blockade of Gaza. While it is laughable when Marxists invoke that excuse, since the occasional novelty of elected Marxist governments did not begin until around the late 1970s, it is tragic when people who say that they know history and value freedom use the free election excuse.

The big difference between National Socialists and International Socialists is that the National Socialists tend to gain power by winning free, honest elections. International Socialists rarely bother with elections and opt for military takeovers. Do these libertarians truly believe that Hitler and Mussolini should have been left alone because they were elected?

No, a strong line needs to be drawn between the free peoples and the Socialist slavers. Iran falls fully into the ranks of authoritarian Socialist republics, they just happen to use the Koran instead of the Communist Manifesto as their top-down planning guide.

If the libertarian position is truly on the opposite side of the spectrum from Socialism, then it should be there because it opposes the imprisonment of the mind and soul that Socialism thrives on. Libertarianism cannot stand idly by and watch oppressors gobble up victims one border at a time, or worse, mirror the anti-interventionism of the British Union of Fascists.

Let The Appeasement Begin! NYT, North Korea Edition

2011-12-22T16:45:00.001-05:00

The North Korean Bureau of Tourism

Just days after the demise of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, Nicholas D. Kristof gives a vivid account of his 1989 visit to North Korea, one of the last remaining International Socialist outposts that is still around. Read the whole thing here: A New Kim. A New Chance?

The title itself is curious enough. A reasonable person would think that now is North Korea's time for a new chance to enter the ranks of freedom, but no, Kristof is telling the United States and others that it is our new chance.

Curiouser still, Kristof visited North Korea in 1989, while South Korean self-defenses were still ramping up after the Jimmy Carter North Korean appeasement acts of 1976 - 1978. Many do not recall that Carter unilaterally removed all nuclear weapons from South Korea and wanted to remove all US forces, other than the US Air Force, from South Korea. He did reduce the US ground forces by 3,600 Soldiers. Unremarkably, the attack forces on the northern side of the border did not evaporate.

President Carter's miscalculation did not result in the reunification of Korea from the North, as may have been his objective. It did result in an ever more provocative North Korea, along with a South Korea that rearmed itself, increased military proficiency, and by 1988 the US military was spending quite a bit of time trying to keep the South Koreans from ending the standoff via a victory over the North. Recently, former president Carter "wished Kim Jong-Un every success as he assumes his new responsibility of leadership" to the new dictator, Kim Jong-Un.

Somehow, none of this is mentioned in the NYT Op-Ed. He did lead with an informative narrative about life in North Korea, which included:

- The Loudspeaker affixed to a wall in each home. (to pipe in propaganda whenever the state wishes)

- people with disabilities are often expelled from the capital, Pyongyang.

- During a famine, North Korean news media warned starving citizens against overeating by recounting the cautionary tale of a man who ate his fill, and then exploded. This one reminded me of a Radio Moscow short-wave broadcast in the early 1980s boasting that while Soviet citizens consumed less meat per capita than people in the West, the Soviets distributed the meat more equally among their population.

- When videos (of movies, music or religion) began to be smuggled in from China, police began to turn off the power to entire buildings. Then the police would go door to door and examine what video was stuck inside players. A smuggled tape could mean the dispatch of an entire family to a labor camp. This begs the observation that is never stated at Reason or in the New York Times, yes it is possible to have even less religious freedom than in China.

- All those North Koreans crying because of Kim Jong-il’s death? Their grief is probably sincere. He is quite correct in this and he expands on it well.

Of course, it does not take Kristof long to pull the predictable Leftist u-turn with this:

Don’t try to isolate North Korea.

The West has reacted to North Korean’s nuclear program by sanctioning and isolating the country. But isolation has mostly backfired. It’s one of the things that keeps the Kim family in power, and we’re helping enforce it.

Moreover, economic pain is not going to destroy the regime. In the mid-1990s, perhaps one million people died in famine, and the regime was unhurt.

Our failures in North Korea are manifest. In 1994, we came close to war on the Korean Peninsula, averting it with a nuclear deal that rested on false hope: The Clinton administration thought the regime would collapse before the West had to deliver civilian nuclear reactors as its part of the agreement.

Traffic Girl in traffic free DPRK

Note that everything in this passage happened long after Kristof's 1989 visit to North Korea where his vivid descriptions of a bleak life, beyond 1984 Orwellian, with robot-like school girls who recite state propaganda to strange Westerners passing through.

He blames the North Korean refusal to feed its own people on the West, when the problem was the same as with all mass starvations in the 20th and 21st centuries: The people with the guns did not let the defenseless people have any food. In this case, it was the absolute statism of International Socialists performing a reenactment of Stalin's Ukrainian Holodomor. This time, the role of The Great Duranty is played by The Great Kristof. In both cases, appeasement only strengthened the sitting dictators and terrorized their neighbors.

The Great Kristof concludes:

There are no good solutions. But let’s take advantage of the leadership transition to try a dose of outreach. If we can inch toward diplomatic relations, trade and people-to-people exchanges, we’re not rewarding a monstrous regime. We just might be digging its grave.

How about this: Give the new leader an ultimatum for a reunification of Korea, under South Korean management. The "Great Successor" does not have the reputation of, say Saddam Hussein's children, yet. Un is not known for any crimes, yet. And stop blaming the USA for crimes Socialist dictators commit inside their own borders.


http://Liberal-Fascism.Com

More: Obama Coddles Radical Islam Just Like FDR Coddled Communists

2011-12-15T09:07:00.000-05:00

Following up on Obama Coddles Radical Islam Just Like FDR Coddled Communists

Here we have Rep. Dan Lungrin (R-CA), during a session of the House & Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee, asking repeatedly if the US is at war with radical Islamists, or if they are at war with the USA. If anybody is following along, the Al Qaeda network is composed exclusively of radical Islamists. Obama's Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas' Security Affairs, Office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Paul N. Stockton, cannot bare the possibility that radical Islamists have declared war against us (link to full testimony):
Andrew C. McCarthy at National Review has a great commentary on this abomination -

The Obama Defense Department: Willful Blindness HQ
December 15, 2011 6:54 A.M.
By Andrew C. McCarthy

If you want to know why Maj. Nidal Hassan was able to carry out a jihadist attack at ~~Fort Bragg~~ Hood [ACM: senior moment -- my apologies] one of the most fortified targets imaginable; if you want to understand why, despite months of neon signs that he was a jihadist, Hassan was able to murder 13 United States soldiers and support personnel (i.e., about double the number killed in the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center); then look no further than this video clip.

It features testimony at a House hearing on threats to our military by Paul Stockton, President Obama’s Assistant Defense Secretary for Homeland Defense & America’s Security Affairs. He is unable to bring himself to utter the word “Islamist,” much less admit what ought to be the undeniable fact that Muslim terrorists are motivated by Islamist ideology.

It reflects the Obama philosophy that we cannot even hint that an interpretation of Islam — drawn literally from Islamic scriptures — is the force motivating our enemies. Even though this is unquestionably true, to say so, to acknowledge it in any way, would mean, according to administration thinking, that we are at war with Islam itself — with all 1.4 billion Muslims, including the hundreds of millions who do not subscribe to this interpretation. Unwilling to entertain the possibility that the enemy has a coherent, knowable doctrine — which is a powerful catalyst precisely because it draws credibly (not inarguably but credibly) on scripture — we have forfeited the natural right to defend ourselves and the troops who make it possible for us to live freely.

This is criminal recklessness. It is idiocy beyond description, so I should just stop trying to describe it. Watch it in all its jaw-dropping ignominy. Three and a half minutes — although it will take you longer than that because you’ll need to watch it a few times in order to come to grips with the fact that it’s not a parody but the real thinking of top officials in the Defense Department and throughout the administration.

UPDATE: I am doing something wrong in trying to embed the video. Until someone who actually knows what he’s doing arrives, click here.

What Do Mussolini, Hitler, Obama and Newt Gingrich Have In Common?

2011-12-13T11:30:00.003-05:00

What Do Mussolini, Hitler, Obama and Newt Gingrich Have In Common?

They loved FDR, in the beginning.

They all praised Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a great President with great policies. Yes, it is true, Mussolini and Hitler praised FDR in the same way that Progressive Newt Gingrich does today. As George F. Will wrote on December 2, 2011 of Gingrich:

Gingrich, who would have made a marvelous Marxist, believes everything is related to everything else and only he understands how. Conservatism, in contrast, is both cause and effect of modesty about understanding society’s complexities, controlling its trajectory and improving upon its spontaneous order. Conservatism inoculates against the hubristic volatility that Gingrich exemplifies and Genesis deplores: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.”

As any thinking person knows, there is precious little difference between Marxism and the other Socialisms, beyond marketing. "Progressive" is just the latest relabeling of National Socialism, an authoritarian system of government that began as Yellow Socialism in France, but did not catch on in Europe after it was made popular in the USA by Theodore Roosevelt, his cousin FDR, and Woodrow Wilson.

If that is not enough, just read this: Newt Gingrich Praised SEIU Head Andy Stern's Forward-Looking Vision. If you have been following this blog, you will know that Andy Stern is a Socialist who endorses the latest crony capitalism/central planning developments in Red China. The Huffington Post quotes Gingrich as saying this in his book Real Chance: From the World That Fails to the World That Works:

Andy Stern, the head of the Service Employees International Union, is the union leader who probably best understands the challenge of the world market and the need to make American union members productive in the face of world competition. Sadly, he is a distinct minority among union leaders.

The thing that divides Progressives like Newt Gingrich from libertarians like Ron Paul is freedom, especially the freedom for the consumer to chose in a free market. The sad thing is, Gingrich can play the nomination game better than the Ron Pauls of the world.

More On Obama And His Fast And Furious National Socialists

2011-12-12T13:31:00.000-05:00

Obama 2012?

Update to previous post: How Fast and Furious 2011 is like the Reichstag Fire 1933

Actually, the current crop of National Socialists running the United States are worse than the National Socialists of old. Worse in obscuring the execution of their pathetic, transparent plots to grab more political control, and worse in the safety of execution.

Fast and Furious vs. Reichstag Fire: Safety

Comparing Fast and Furious to the 1933 Reichstag fire on the safety front, nobody died in the Reichstag fire, but at least one police officer, Bryan Terry, and who knows how many others have died in Fast and Furious.

Fast and Furious vs. Reichstag Fire: Execution

By execution, I mean pulling a violent political stunt and turning it to the advantage of the party that will benefit the most from it. In the case of Fast and Furious, it is most certainly the Democrat party of the United States that stands to benefit the most from the scheme, had it been kept secret.

It is still uncertain of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP, aka, Nazi Party) set the fire, or if the International Socialists of the Communist Part Of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – KPD) set the Reichstag fire. We do know a Communist was convicted of setting the fire, he said he acted alone, and was murdered (purged) by the Stalin in 1940. This sort of indicates that it was indeed a Communist plot, if only plotted by one, that resulted in the demise of the KPD, which probably upset Stalin a little too.

The event was used to great advantage by the NSDAP to limit the rights of citizens and consolidate one-party-rule in Germany. Remember a motto of the Socialist, never let a serious crisis go to waste.

Shifting to the modern day, a United States Democrat regime lead by Barrack Hussein Obama, hatched a scheme to let Mexican drug lords buy guns in the USA, (who are more lethal than radical Islam) in order to curtail the rights of Americans to own guns, and then they blame the people who defend the rights of citizens.

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-GA

The first wave of the propaganda war has been launched, spearheaded by Democrat Hank Johnson, of Georgia:
Via The Daily Caller:

Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson accused the tea party movement and the National Rifle Association of creating an “manufactured” controversy over Operation Fast and Furious Thursday.

Johnson’s comments came during an interview with The Daily Caller outside the House Judiciary Committee hearing room. Attorney General Eric Holder was testifying before the committee about Fast and Furious — a Justice Department program where Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents facilitated the sale of about 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels.

“I think this is another manufactured controversy by the second amendment, NRA Republican tea party movement,” Johnson said.

This is the same Georgia Democrat who thinks the Guam might flip over if any more American troops are stationed on the American island. He also takes the Socialist view that the "promote general welfare" wording in the preamble of the United States Constitution is a mandate on the Congress to provide National Healthcare. If you watch the second video link, you will see that Johnson's Town Hall Meeting security will eject anybody who asks a question on the Constitution, they will be ejected. Representative Johnson is obviously a Socialist and it does not really matter if his flavor is National or International.

Without much mainstream media fanfare, which is no surprise since the MSM is nothing more than the public relations branch of the hard Left in the USA, National Rifle Association (NRA) officer Wayne LaPierre responded to the absurd notion that the NRA was responsible for the Obama administration plot to sell guns to Mexican drug lords:

More from the Newsmax story:

"Over a period of two or three years they were running thousands and thousands of guns to the most evil people on earth. At the same time they were yelling ’90 per cent… of the guns the Mexican drug cartels are using come from the United States."

"That was a phony figure from the very start. Even the Wikileaks cables from our own State Department prove they are coming from Central America, they are not coming from the U.S. Every police officer will tell you that they’re coming from Russia, they’re coming from China, most of them are coming from Central America and a lot of them are coming from defections from the Mexican Army,” said LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president and CEO.

But LaPierre said that President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were determined to make it appear that most weapons used by the Mexicans came from north of the border, “so they could stick more gun legislation on honest American gun owners of the United States.”

The bottom line is simple. Fast and Furious is a botched attempt by the Obama administration to limit the rights of all Americans and they are still trying to salvage this operation to restrict the rights of Americans to own and purchase guns. They are attacking licensed gun dealers, even those that were cooperating with the government, and they are using this as a propaganda device to blame Mexican drug war violence on innocent Americans.

How Fast and Furious 2011 is like the Reichstag Fire 1933

2011-12-08T14:17:00.001-05:00

"It's like ATF created or added to the problem so they could be the solution to it and pat themselves on the back," says one law enforcement source familiar with the facts. "It's a circular way of thinking."

German Reichstag Fire, 1933

Answer to title: Both events were attempts by the political classes to grab power in their respective republics.

In the case of the Reichstag* Fire (Reichstagsbrand), the National Socialists of Germany succeeded in scaring the public into thinking they needed more National Socialists and fewer International Socialists to protect them, along with bestowing more power on an already wildly popular Chancellor Hitler. However, nobody died in the Reichstagsbrand.

Chancellor Obama?

How is the US federal government "Fast and Furious" operation similar to the Reichstagsbrand? The latest news indicates that it was an effort by the Obama administration to infringe upon Amendment II to the United States Constitution. While nobody died in the Reichstag fire, Agent Brian Terry's death is the direct result of operation Fast and Furious.

Via CBS News - Documents: ATF used "Fast and Furious" to make the case for gun regulations

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF's Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

"Bill - can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks."

On Jan. 4, 2011, as ATF prepared a press conference to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, Newell saw it as "(A)nother time to address Multiple Sale on Long Guns issue." And a day after the press conference, Chait emailed Newell: "Bill--well done yesterday... (I)n light of our request for Demand letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case."

This revelation angers gun rights advocates. Larry Keane, a spokesman for National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group, calls the discussion of Fast and Furious to argue for Demand Letter 3 "disappointing and ironic." Keane says it's "deeply troubling" if sales made by gun dealers "voluntarily cooperating with ATF's flawed 'Operation Fast & Furious' were going to be used by some individuals within ATF to justify imposing a multiple sales reporting requirement for rifles."

Here is some email between the the ATF and a licensed gun dealer.
Email 1

Email 2

ATF's group supervisor on Fast and Furious David Voth assures the gun dealer there's nothing to worry about. "We (ATF) are continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into detail."

Two months later, the same gun dealer grew more agitated.

"I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys. I guess I am looking for a bit of reassurance that the guns are not getting south or in the wrong hands...I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents (sic) safety because I have some very close friends that are US Border Patrol agents in southern AZ as well as my concern for all the agents (sic) safety that protect our country."

"It's like ATF created or added to the problem so they could be the solution to it and pat themselves on the back," says one law enforcement source familiar with the facts. "It's a circular way of thinking."

More at the CBS website.
~~This latest~~ That revelation comes from the same administration that has nationalized a large segment of the automobile industry without any Congressional approval and has nationalized the health care industry during a period of same-party domination of both houses of Congress. National Socialism? Yes.

Update 9 DEC 2011 from The Daily Caller:

Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson accused the tea party movement and the National Rifle Association of creating an “manufactured” controversy over Operation Fast and Furious Thursday.

Johnson’s comments came during an interview with The Daily Caller outside the House Judiciary Committee hearing room. Attorney General Eric Holder was testifying before the committee about Fast and Furious — a Justice Department program where Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents facilitated the sale of about 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels.

“I think this is another manufactured controversy by the second amendment, NRA Republican tea party movement,” Johnson said.

Bolding mine.
This is growing to be identical to what the National Socialists pulled in 1933.

Before anybody assumes (since I have not mentioned it on this blog before this) that I am comparing the Obama administration's actions to the 1938 German Weapons Act at all. That act deserves a post of its own, since the 1938 German Weapons Act bears more similarities to Wilsonian and FDR era gun restrictions targeting race: Jews were forbidden from the manufacturing or ownership of firearms and ammunition. (page 22) Otherwise, the much misstated Hitler-era German law expanded citizens rights to be armed.

More On Obama And His Fast And Furious National Socialists

*German Parliament of the Weinmar Republic

Obama and the Telephone Operators

2011-12-07T13:05:00.001-05:00

Rough Rider Obama

Obama's 6 December 2011 Speech, Osawatomie, Kansas

What is this love that president Obama has for a pre-Industrial Revolution society? He has been on a kick about automation for months. He is still yammering about ATMs, travel agents, and the Internet. Now he has added telephone operators? It goes hand-in-hand for his hate of the Industrial Revolution. A few months ago, on 17 August, 2011, he was using the bank teller example:

Abolish the Drive-Thru too?
When I go into factories these days, what’s amazing is how clean and how quiet they are, because what used to take 1,000 folks to do now only takes 100 folks to do. And one of the challenges in terms of rebuilding our economy is businesses have gotten so efficient that -- when was the last time somebody went to a bank teller instead of using the ATM, or used a travel agent instead of just going online?

This was on Obama's meandering path to telling his audience that he wanted more public education money. The sad thing is, the ATM was an invention to make banking more convenient for people. Over-regulation of the banking industry made the ATM indispensable.

Ernestine the Operator

On December 6th 2011, in Kansas, Obama bleated this:

Factories where people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas, where workers were cheaper. Steel mills that needed 100 -- or 1,000 employees are now able to do the same work with 100 employees, so layoffs too often became permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle. And these changes didn’t just affect blue-collar workers. If you were a bank teller or a phone operator or a travel agent, you saw many in your profession replaced by ATMs and the Internet.

So, let's go back to the days before automatic switching and see how this works out. Via PBS, we can see that calls per person per year in 1940 was around 250 (PDF). The US population was 132,164,569, according to the 1940 Census, so that is about 33,041,142,250 telephone calls annually, handled by about 350,000 operators. Each operator handled about 94,403 calls per year.

In 2000 (the last year in the PBS chart) US population was 281,421,906. At the call rates of 1940, that is 70,355,476,500 calls and a demand for 745,267 operators. However, by 1997 (last year noted in the PBS chart) Americans made an average of 2,325 calls per year. If we use the 2000 census, that is 654,305,931,450 calls that would demand 6,930,986 operators for voice calls only. Forget about text messages, Facebook, chat or the like. The technology that Obama approves of does not support that. Also remember, if we kept 1940s technology it is highly unlikely that people would make 2,000-plus calls per year either.

There is a lot of mythology around the telephone operator profession in America that built over the years that the Bell System as a government protected monopoly. "Ma Bell" was generally hated by everybody in the USA. Since they were a monopoly, by edict of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the customer service experience Americans had with them was not much better that the worst department of motor vehicles office in America today.

Sexism and "unfairness" emerged as epithets against the Bell System and that got mixed in with 1970s hate for the phone company. The sexism narrative was that Alexander Graham Bell himself hired only women as operators because they were cheaper. Of course, as most socialist narratives, this was false.

It is well documented that boys were originally hired as telephone operators, just as they had been hired as telegraph operators. A few choice mentions:
In One Man's Life: A Telephone Set About 1889-90

Holmes had presently dis- missed his staff of boys as being noisy and unruly, replacing them with girls

THE HACKER CRACKDOWN
Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier
by Bruce Sterling

Although Bell himself was an ardent suffragist, thetelephone company did not employ women for the sake of advancingfemale liberation. AT&T did this for sound commercial reasons.The first telephone operators of the Bell system were not women,but teenage American boys. They were telegraphic messenger boys(a group about to be rendered technically obsolescent), who sweptup around the phone office, dunned customers for bills, and madephone connections on the switchboard, all on the cheap.

Within the very first year of operation, 1878, Bell'scompany learned a sharp lesson about combining teenage boys andtelephone switchboards. Putting teenage boys in charge of thephone system brought swift and consistent disaster. Bell's chiefengineer described them as "Wild Indians." The boys were openlyrude to customers. They talked back to subscribers, saucing off,uttering facetious remarks, and generally giving lip. Therascals took Saint Patrick's Day off without permission. Andworst of all they played clever tricks with the switchboardplugs: disconnecting calls, crossing lines so that customersfound themselves talking to strangers, and so forth.

Nobody tell Obama. Next thing you know, he will want us to go back to the pre-telephone days of the telegraph, or earlier.

Maybe mentioning jobs that people are used to being filled by women ties into the Obama nostalgia for the days when a budding Progressive National Socialist movement was all the rage?

Now, for this, Roosevelt was called a radical. He was called a socialist -- (laughter) -- even a communist. But today, we are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what he fought for in his last campaign: an eight-hour work day and a minimum wage for women -- (applause) -- insurance for the unemployed and for the elderly, and those with disabilities; political reform and a progressive income tax. (Applause.)

(for more bizarre politicians invoking Teddy Roosevelt, see this)

Obama is steeped in mythology in many areas. From the earlier quoted part of his Kansas speech, Factories where people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas, where workers were cheaper. Not exactly. Overregulation of many forms deove American factories overseas where the total cost of production was lower. Steel mills that needed 100 -- or 1,000 employees are now able to do the same work with 100 employees, so layoffs too often became permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle. In the past, Obama has invoked the images of South Side Chicago steel mills "leaving". Now he says American steel mills are more efficient, so now that is a problem to him. In reality, overbearing environmental regulations ran the steel mills out of the country. Mini-mills, like those from Nucor Steel, operate today reprocessing scrap steel. It is no mistake that they generally operate in right-to-work States.

David Bernstein wrote about the myth of early 20th century Progressives and minimum wage for women in response to Obama's speech:

Oddly enough, Obama also praises Roosevelt for supporting a minimum wage for women. Chapter 4 of Rehabilitating Lochner describes the impetus for such laws, and much of the relevant the information in that chapter can be found in this paper published in Law and Contemporary Problems. The history is too rich to give an adequate summary here. Let’s just say that the history of such laws is not pretty. The laws’ primary supporters included male-only labor unions that wanted to keep women out of the workplace–women-only minimum wage laws almost never passed without strong from unions that typically opposed minimum wage laws for men; eugenicists who wanted women to stay home and take care of their children; bigots who thought that only the lower order of men (including Eastern European immigrants) would allow their women to work for wages; moralists who believed that low-wage women were susceptible to vice and should therefore stay out of the workforce; and economists who believed that, as Felix Frankfurter summarized in his brief in Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, women who wanted to work but could not command a government-imposed minimum wage were “semi-employable” or “unemployable” workers who should “accept the status of a defective to be segregated for special treatment as a dependent.”

You really cannot trust anything that comes from the mouth of a Socialist.

Now for a lesson in doing your own research, something that Obama's people might want to try. As soon as I heard Obama say "operators" I was reminded of this interesting statistic from William F. Buckley, Jr. that he voices at a 1991 Young Americans for Freedom forum (unembedable video at the link):

10:40 - If we had frozen our technology at the level of nineteen-hundred-and-forty, and the same number of telephone calls were made today, per capita, as were made then, every woman between the age of twenty and sixty-six would have to serve as a telephone operator to make possible these transactions.

As soon as I began checking the numbers, I realized that the notion was flawed. It sounds good, a nation of nearly 300 million people would make a lot of telephone calls, even at the 250 per capita rate of 1940. However, the female population 20 - 24 of 1991 could easily handle the load with millions of women left to do other things.

China vs. China

2011-12-06T14:28:00.001-05:00

Friedmania is in the air.

Hot For Sweaty Asian

Communist Red China is in the news again, mainly because the mainstream media Stalinists love anything Big Communist. Maybe I should lower-case that to "stalinists" since it refers to the default position of everybody on the Left, and as we all know Stalin defined the Left and the Right in 1928.

Ronald Bailey

This time Reason sent their decidedly anti-Communist Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey to the latest Red China showcase event: The U.N. Climate Change (sic) Conference in Durban, South Africa. The self-professed fan-boy of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) was actually amazed that so many pundits buy the claptrap that if we only accede to Red Chinese demands we can save the world. Those demands being Communist China gets to do whatever they want and all of Red China's industrial competitors get to provide welfare to "developing" (aka backward, aka Third World) countries. Read his article, he was there and covers it better than I can. It is a breath of fresh air after a short series by the insufferable Bradley Gardner, Reason's resident Friedmanosis carrier.

Tom Friedman, Red China Fanboy

During the past week the Friedmanista concubines of Red China have been touting the big strides of Red Chinese crony capitalism and warning the US that we need to watch out for them. They have seen the future and it is Capital Communist! Never mind that they are channeling Lincoln Steffens and Will Rogers at the same time, they have the guts to say that the US will be 'overtaken' by a country whose economy is smaller than Mexico's.

About this "economic overtaking" business for a moment. Who cares? As long as we have freedom and a comfortable standard of living it really does not matter who is "bigger," it matters only that we are free to make our own choices as individuals and that we have a decent comforts. Do you know who cares? Andy Stern and others who wish to scare us deeper into Socialism, that's who.

If you do not know who Andy Stern is, Worker's World glowingly describes him like this (links added by me):

Andy Stern, former head of the giant Service Employees union in the United States, recently visited China as part of a delegation organized by the China-United States Exchange Foundation and the Center for American Progress. Stern, knowing very well that U.S. workers are in the midst of a long-term crisis of unemployment that shows no letup, was highly impressed with the goals of China’s 12th five-year plan, which were explained to the visiting group by high-ranking Chinese officials.

Deirdre Griswold expands on the 'virtues' of central planning. The requisite "commanding heights" phrasing always entertains me, but she sounds serious about it -

China allows capitalism to exist — it has stock markets, private ownership of some of the means of production, a growing bourgeoisie, and many social features of capitalism, like a big income gap between rich and poor. But it also has state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy, especially the major banks, as well as the industries vital to China’s infrastructure.

If you are into Red porn, read the rest. I did it so you don't have to.

The Stern article in question is one the Wall Street Journal published by Stern on 1 DEC 2011, China's Superior Economic Model The free-market fundamentalist economic model is being thrown onto the trash heap of history. Skipping to the important parts of Stern's audition as the 21st century Sino-Eisenstein:

While we debate, Team China rolls on. Our delegation witnessed China's people-oriented development in Chongqing, a city of 32 million in Western China, which is led by an aggressive and popular Communist Party leader—Bo Xilai. A skyline of cranes are building roughly 1.5 million square feet of usable floor space daily—including, our delegation was told, 700,000 units of public housing annually.

Of course, the word of the PRC government is good enough for Stern. One wonders why scenes like this were not mentioned. Perhaps they were not on the tour?

Back to the Stern article:

Meanwhile, the Chinese government can boast that it has established in Western China an economic zone for cloud computing and automotive and aerospace production resulting in 12.5% annual growth and 49% growth in annual tax revenue, with wages rising more than 10% a year.

For those of us who love this country and believe America has every asset it needs to remain the No. 1 economic engine of the world, it is troubling that we have no plan—and substitute a demonization of government and worship of the free market at a historical moment that requires a rethinking of both those beliefs.

America needs to embrace a plan for growth and innovation, with a streamlined government as a partner with the private sector. Economic revolutions require institutions to change and maybe make history, because if they stick to the status quo they soon become history. Our great country, which sparked and wants to lead this global revolution, needs a forward looking, long-term economic plan.

Do not confuse the Stern's idea of streamlined government with anything a libertarian would envision. His version of streamlined government is more like Mao, Mussolini, Hitler or Stalin. Or perhaps what Obama would be doing if that pesky Congress and those radio talk people were not standing in his way.

These reports resemble the infrequent dispatches about Idi Amin's Ugandan public works projects from the 1970s, on a much larger scale. They are also reminiscent of Soviet endeavors to make "the biggest", like airplanes that were 1/4" longer than the American version.

Jonah Goldberg did a fine job of dissecting Stern's WSJ piece:
The Problem with China Envy
What liberals want to copy is the authoritarianism.

Stern sees the Chinese government’s allegedly keen ability to “plan” its way to prosperity as the new model for America. It is an argument of profound asininity. China had five-year plans before it started getting rich. Under the old five-year plans, China killed tens of millions of its own people and remained mired in poverty. What made China rich wasn’t planning, it was the decision to switch to markets (albeit corrupt ones). The planners were merely in charge of distributing the wealth that markets created.

Indeed, rapid economic growth always makes government planners look like geniuses when the reality is that the planners are more like self-proclaimed rainmakers who started dancing only after it started raining. When the rain stops, which it will, they’ll have much to answer for.

Oh, and what about labor? There’s one labor union in China, and it’s run by the government. (The Nazis had pretty much the same system.) Stern doesn’t seem to care.

Goldberg is much more generous than me with the When the rain stops, which it will, they’ll have much to answer for. phrasing. They will not be answering to anybody, as George Will said to Charlie Rose:

Enough with the Red China envy and support. Speaking well of anything going on mainland China today is nothing short of propping up a slavery colony. One only needs to glance at a comparison to Taiwan to see that Communist China is a paper tiger. The PRC and the ROC began at roughly the same moment. If you want to talk income gaps, China has 115 billionaires and at least 115 million people living on a dollar a day or less. Nearly all of those billionaires got rich gaming a corrupt political system. Remember that when you see whining like this: The most prosperous 20 percent of Taiwanese reported average disposable incomes of NT$1.79 million last year, or 6.34 times the income of the poorest 20 percent, government data showed. (apparently 2010 stats)

Piss on Mao, and Stalin too

We need to abandon the notion that consumer goods will bring Communist regimes to their knees too, as George F. Will mentions in the video with Charlie Rose. The only thing that brings authoritarian regimes to their senses is force. Showing the Soviets that they could not possibly compete with us militarily is what toppled them from within. The lesson China took from that was to keep their society closed, befriend the wandering useful idiots in the west, and offer up slave labor for western commercial enterprises.

Even with their central planning, massive monuments to government, public works projects that are the envy of Tom Friedman, and central planning, Red China is still a third world economy train wreck.

The Train Wreck That Is Red China

Which Way Did Those Refugees Go?

2011-12-04T15:53:00.001-05:00

In a classically hilarious Firing Line episode from 1969, Noam Chomsky has the laughable position that more refugees fled South Vietnam to the north than fled in the other direction.

One exchange begins at the 15:30 mark. In that exchange about Vietnam, Chomsky blames Vietcong atrocities on American intervention in Vietnam.

At the exchange beginning on the 27:00 mark, Chomsky spins the fiction that the first Communist insurrection in Greece (the one prior to the WWII German invasion) was really an organic, internal "uprising" and not Soviet sponsored at all.

Back to Vietnam, at 37:29 Chomsky states that "there is more evidence that South Vietnam tried to colonize North Vietnam than conversely". Buckley asks if the "infiltrators" from South Vietnam going into the North bumped into the refugees coming south. This is where Chomsky begins his big whopper of a tale, saying that refugees traveled in both directions. At 38:30 Buckley asks about the people going "north to south" and Chomsky is 'baffled'.

According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), by no means a Western mouthpiece even after the fall of the Soviet Union, here is the breakdown of Vietnamese refugee migration from 1954-1956:

The State of The World's Refugees 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action, Chapter 4: Flight from Indochina, War and exodus from Viet Nam -

With the founding of a communist government in the north, more than a million people moved south in the years 1954–56. Their numbers included nearly800,000 Roman Catholics, an estimated two-thirds of the total Roman Catholicpopulation in the north. There was a smaller movement in the opposite direction,The State of the World’s Refugees as some 130,000 supporters of the communist Viet Minh movement were transported north by Polish and Soviet ships.2

2 L.A.Wiesner, Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and OtherWar Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975,Westport Press, New York, 1988; A.R. Zolberg et al., Escape from Violence: Conflictand the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1989, pp. 160–70.

That is greater than a 7 to 1 ratio of people fleeing Communism vs. people fleeing 'oppressive' Western influence. The number of Catholics alone fleeing North Vietnam vs. those fleeing North is 6 to 1. Since folks towing the Communist line in the West had a direct line to Soviet propaganda, there is little doubt that Chomsky had the 130,000 number etched in his head.

Years later, after the North Vietnamese took over (with the help of the United States Congress), there was another mass exodus of Vietnamese. This time they fled by see from every port in the country, to any port that would take them.

Socialism, especially the International variety, kills more people than any other ideology on earth and everybody outside of the faculty lounge knows it.

#OccupyWalmart Adds A Juvenile Sophomoric Touch To The Shop-In

2011-12-03T18:21:00.001-05:00

(Updated 04 DEC 2011)
So far in the latest bitch, whine, and complain demonstration nostalgia of the 1960s we have had Teach-Ins, Sit-Ins, along with piss-and-shit-ins. Now the bush league Ad-Busters scripted, American Nazi Party endorsed #Occupy children, decided to dig out another discarded protest idea that involves a field trip. This one from the 1960s, pioneered by the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE): The Shop-In

Cumberland Evening Times, Friday, February 28, 1964

Negroes Stage Shop-in Protests

New Weapon Used By Civil Rights Demonstrators

In the shop-in,. demonstrators enter a store, fill shopping carts with, groceries, wheel them to the counter, have them checked out, then say they can't pay and leave the sacks and boxes piled in front of clerks.

Members of the Congress of Racial Equality began the tactic last week at supermarkets of Lucky Stores, Inc. in San Francisco, at Berkeley, home of the University of California, and at Palo Alto to the south, adjacent to Stanford University.

They contend Lucky didn't fulfill an agreement to hire additional Negroes. Lucky flatly denied it, pointed to its Negro employes and said it would have no part of "reverse discrimination."
Tuesday, the largest Negro group in San Francisco, the Baptist Ministers Union said it would sever its ties with CORE if the shop-ins didn't stop.

"CORE has a right to picket, but if it continues 'to use this tactic, we just can't go along," said the Rev. George L. Bedford, head of the group representing 40,000 of the city's 85,000 Negroes.

In 1964, CORE was picketing grocery stores that they did not like, but that tactic did not impact business enough. So, they tried a new tactic, clogging up the stores so nobody else could buy anything. Later in 1967, CORE was a key player in the Detroit Riot.

Now, the new kids come along with their version: #OccupyBlackFriday

Instead of a trespassing protest on private property to get a grocery store that already employs Black people to . . . employ Black people a la CORE, the #Occupy kids make a mess trespassing on private property to demand . . . people shop locally?

The original shopins were so successful that they ended up on the trash-heap of history for almost forty years. The old fart Commies running this #Occupy circus must have some memory of the shopins of old, and how they went over. Perhaps they do not, because until recently one had to remember them from the 1960s because there was precious little to be found about them online. The effect was pissing people off, so maybe they do remember and it fits right in with the rest of #Occupy. There is an old film or two about the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s that PBS channels play on occasion, but that is about it. I have been asking for source information about shopins for years and this week was the first time I found a news report from the period that mentioned "shop-ins".

In Liberal Fascism, or during his book tour, Jonah Goldberg mentioned that around the time of Hitler's rise in Germany there were protests against department stores there, similar to the Walmart hate we witness in America today. I am still looking for direct references to that and any information is welcome.

Daniel J. Flynn has a great response to #OccupyWalmart at Human Events. Rush Limbaugh mentioned the ruckus on his show, apparently before it spread to Target, Best Buy and other stores.

The Blaze covered the Dayton 'event' like this:

Black Friday shoppers in Dayton, Ohio, were in for a rude awakening when Occupy Dayton protesters (we’ve reported on their antics before) entered a local Walmart and Target and began mic-checking and berating individuals and families.

On the protest group’s YouTube page, a five and a half minute video has been posted. In it, Occupiers document and promote the torment they attempt to inflict on shoppers.

At the 40 second mark, you’ll see the first clip, which was taken at a local Target store. Around 1:08, a male voice can be heard asking, “Ready?” Within seconds, the protesters begin yelling, “Mic check!” Then, they launch into their seemingly endless chant:

“Hello Daytonians. We have a message for you. This will only take a moment. It is shameful that you spend your hard-earned money at a corporation who does not care about your family. They insult the 99 percent. They pay little or no taxes, while profits soar. Our tax money goes to our public schools. We find it an outrage that you continue to shop here in support of a corporation who does not support you.”

Video from The Blaze:

I am not up on Walmart getting any free ride on sales taxes. They frequently get property tax incentives thrown at them by local governments competing with other local governments for Walmart to build a store in their town, which is really an abuse of government power. Neither am I certain if Ohioans fund public schools with sales taxes generated at Walmart. I am betting that the Occupiers have a few tax facts wrong.

Also, if you don't think that the American Nazis are Socialists, try looking at their endorsement of #OWS for their "anti-capitalist" positions. Just because they mix racism with Socialism does not make them any less Socialistic.

Obama Coddles Radical Islam Just Like FDR Coddled Communists

2011-12-02T22:52:00.001-05:00

Followup here.

"Controversial" FBI video:

If you view the video, William Gawthrop makes it quite clear that he is teaching about the ideology associated with Islam, not the religious aspects of man's relationship with God, but man's relationship with man. A different way to state it, that he does not state, would be to imagine Socialism as a stated religion and limit the discussion to the economic and social ideology, including its war with the free market.

This is quite different than examining organized crime figures who attend Catholic Church and imagining/inventing that the Catholic Church is promoting organized crime. It is examining a belief system that promotes and recruits terrorists, as Christopher Hitchens speaks about on a regular basis.

He gives examples of other ideologically motivated acts of terror too, but there is no outcry against that.

The following is from a Leftist commentator who reported on the above clip, then said jump. Obama responded how high, Sir? To some, any linking of jihadists to their terror networks is speech that cannot be condoned.
Obama Orders Government to Clean Up Terror Training
By Spencer Ackerman

The White House quietly ordered a widespread review of government counterterrorism training materials last month, following Danger Room’s reports that officials at the FBI, military and Justice Department taught their colleagues that “mainstream” Muslims embrace violence and compared the Islamic religion to the Death Star.

Gawthrop did nothing of the sort! Look at the video. Just after the 18:00 mark he mentions economically poor societies that are not sending out suicide bombers and points out how the jihadists are different. He mentions Islamic law and how Islam is the form of government to some.

At 20:20 he uses the example of a US Aircraft Carrier and how the nuclear reactor is its source of strength, a critical vulnerability. To continue the illustration he mentions the Death Star and how it was destroyed, with a "torpedo" down a shaft to the core reactor to attack its critical vulnerability. Then he goes back to the critical vulnerabilities of jihadist terrorists and tells analysts to focus there.

According to a Pentagon memorandum acquired by Danger Room, the White House’s National Security Staff in October requested “Departments and Agencies” to “provide their screening process for CVE trainers and speakers.” (.pdf) CVE refers to “Countering Violent Extremism,” the euphemism du jour for the war on terrorism. The memorandum says that “recent media attention” led to the review, and contains a single attachment to demonstrate that attention: “Spencer Ackerman’s Wired.com article.”

The ongoing review will examine whether counterterrorism training material throughout the government is accurate and relevant, and will make sure the briefings given to federal field offices and local cops meet the same standards as FBI headquarters or the Pentagon. Jose Mayorga, a retired two-star general who now serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense, oversaw the Pentagon’s contribution to the White House review. In the memo, dated Oct. 16, Mayorga asked aides to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to collect counterterrorism training materials at the “service academies and major academic centers (e.g., Joint Special Operations University, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and National Defense Intelligence College)” by Oct. 31, a deadline that Pentagon spokesman Robert Ditchey says has “been extended” so the department can be “comprehensive and deliberate.”

Part of the first wave to ignore Islamic motivated terror is a scrub of CVE training slides, the words "Islam" and "terrorism" cannot appear on the same slide. With the direction this is taking, it will be impossible to mention the threats that the government is supposed to be countering.

Followup here.

Atheist Leftists Are Leftists First And Atheists Second, Or Less

2011-12-01T10:52:00.001-05:00

Update: Christopher Hitchens died on 15 December, 2011. National Review and Vanity Fair have the details.

Here we have Christopher Hitchens speaking to a group of atheists at a Freedom From Religion Foundation gathering. He sounds like damn near the only atheist in the building:

One of the great things about Christopher Hitchens is that he is principled. He dresses down a Leftist surrender monkey (around the 3:40 mark) and asks what he is doing in a conference like this. He uses as an example the Greek Myth of Antaeus to respond to the ridiculous notion that if bin Laden is killed many will spring up in his place.

The point he makes is, there are religious zealots who are fighting us, killing human rights volunteers, etc. and they need to be stopped in the name of liberty for all. The next questioner, a Marxist/Communist is "troubled" by Hitchens' earlier answer. "You see how far the termites have spread" is the Hitchens money quote in response to the ridiculous question and the man's accusation that the West is the big "war crimes" instigator.

Hitchens continues in this clip about Islamic slaughter in East Timor and its appearance in the Al Qaeda/bin Laden manifesto:

Now, the point of all of this goes directly to the bigger issue of Atheism in the Socialist vs. Libertarian dialogue.

A hallmark of Socialists/Leftists is their professed atheism. Not all of them to be sure, but one must mount a tremendous search to find a non-atheist among them. In the libertarian ranks, the search is ever so slightly shorter. That said about both, many a libertarian and many a Socialist will side with any non-Christian/Jew who wishes to attack Western Civilization. Much like Murray Rothbard, on a different principle, clapping for Khrushchev because "Khrushchev had killed fewer people than General Eisenhower, his host."

In the video clips above, Hitchens (now a libertarian Atheist) dresses down two pseudo-atheists for being against the Western response to being attacked by Islamic fundamentalists. The basis of these pseudo-atheists' objection to the war against a religious theocracy is a recurring theme: Western free-market leaning governments caused the problem, so we should leave the jihadists alone and they will settle down. Hitchens does not accept their arguments and dices them as any thinking human being should.

Now, for my own personal "bias", I am a Christian and libertarian who can agree with Hitchens in virtually all that he said in response to these people. I do not want to impose my beliefs on others by force, terror, government coercion, or any other tactic that the jihadists are using. Additionally, if some person or group want to force anybody else into a religion of any kind I feel that should be opposed, even with force of arms.

Sadly, many libertarians combine atheism and pacifism into a bizarre mix that results in a defacto support for any non-Christian group that is willing to attack the West. Their atheism is more like an endless attack on Christianity from a non-denominational agnostic view than true atheism. Perhaps there is a dose of false libertarianism in there too.

Natural rights do not enforce themselves. Words to live by from quite a few libertarian and conservative thinkers. If someone is trying to take your rights by any means, you have every right, indeed you have an obligation, to prevent them from doing so, even if force is required and the police power of the state is perfectly appropriate. One can understand leaving our powder dry when some group of people outside of our control wishes to abuse each other, issuing official embargoes, strongly worded telegrams, and the like. However, when they move to attack us and impose their version of il-liberty on us, including our allies, the gloves need to come off.

The Left Never Questions A Kennedy

2011-11-29T19:12:00.001-05:00

"How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." - Ronald Reagan, September 25, 1987 -- remarks in Arlington, Virginia

Oh those Kennedys. Our republic is in a sad state of affairs when so-called Conservatives invoke any Kennedy on a regular basis, including JFK, for almost anything good. Examples are numerous, worthy of a long book, but I will stick to just a few. The first example is of a Senator Edward Kennedy absurdity is near the end of a tediously long speech, given in New York city on 12 AUG 1980 with respect to a progressive income tax:

The vast majority of Americans cannot afford this panacea from a Republican nominee who has denounced the progressive income tax as the invention of Karl Marx. I am afraid he has confused Karl Marx with Theodore Roosevelt--that obscure Republican president who sought and fought for a tax system based on ability to pay. Theodore Roosevelt was not Karl Marx, and the Republican tax scheme is not tax reform.

First, he scolds Ronald Reagan (the Republican nominee) for missing a possible Adam Smith answer from 1776, which really does not address progressive income taxation at all, but revenue taxation:

The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Progressive taxation was first recorded on paper during the French Revolution in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789:

A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.^[16]

However, The Gipper was substantially correct, in the works of Marx and Engles, The Communist Manifesto of 1848, progressive taxation comes up right after abolishing private ownership of land:

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

In Senator Kennedy's zeal to misdirect his audience from Marx and to try to make candidate Reagan look foolish, he directed everybody to . . . Theodore Roosevelt. Trust Buster and Progressive "Bull Moose" Party founder Teddy Roosevelt. Yes, he was a Republican for a little while, but they were just not progressive enough for him. He was at war with anybody who was too successful, just like his cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt was when he began his National Socialist reign. Senator Kennedy's remarks become even more comical when you read his brother John F. Kennedy's remarks in Madison Square Garden almost 20 years earlier, on 21 OCT 1960:

This issue which divides Mr. Nixon and myself, which divides the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, has divided us through many years of our history. It divided the country in l932, and the American people choose progress. It divided the country in 1912, and the American people chose the New Freedom and Woodrow Wilson.

(Emphasis mine)

The 1932 reference is to FDR, who prolonged a depression into the Great Depression. New Freedom must be newspeak for the totalitarian regime that Wilson enacted in America. Since JFK's speech was given to an audience of the Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, newspeak is a safe bet.

Full disclosure, I got the idea from this William F. Buckley, Jr. lecture.

Update: Tracking down the Reagan quote in the Ted Kennedy speech proved difficult. For one thing, I made the stupid assumption that Kennedy's speech writer was referencing something from in or around the 1980 campaign. Not even close. I found an old James J. Kilpatrick article that reveals Kennedy was attacking Reagan for a then sixteen year old statement.
It would be great to find the 1964 version of the Reagan speech that Kilpatrick wrote about, but even with our advanced research tools the closest references I could find are these and no transcript or video -

1961: Dec. 11 "The Danger of Losing Our Freedom by Installments," Annwl Dinner of the Huntington Memorial Hospital's Medical Staff, Huntington Sheraton Hotel, Pasadena, Calif.

1962: Feb. 21 "Losing Freedom By Installments," Uvalde Chamber of Commerce Banquet, Southwest Texas Junior College, Uvalde, Texas.

Kilpatrick also notes some of what I noticed in his critique of the Kennedy speech.

Socialists/Leftists Are The Most Bigoted People Anywhere

2011-11-29T14:18:00.001-05:00

Before you start rattling off a list that begins with Ku Klux Klan (KKK), you might want to look at their origins and then thank me for the link, agree that they were Leftist, Statist, bigoted busybodies who wanted to restrict individual liberty through legislation and terror.

Now, for the freshest Leftist bigotry in America, we need only look at the MSNBC video of one young Mr. Touré exposing his own bigotry toward race-mixing (video and story at the link, video also embed below). As quoted by RCP:

Martin Bashir, host: "Toure, you were just nodding your head agreeing with Karen? What, on the ethnicity of the accuser?"

Toure: "Yes, absolutely. Charles Blow was talking about this the other day. What sort of comb, he says, does these women use? We're going to see how open the GOP is to this black -- their 'new black friend' when they find out he is harassing blonde women as opposed to black women. That sort of thing of black sexuality -- predatory black sexuality. Very frightening in this country, still. Very threatening. So we'll see how that plays out. "

The Charles Blow comment in question is eluding me for some reason after searching Google, You Tube, and other search facilities.

Apparently Mr. Touré does not get out much. If he did, he would see every variety of racial mixing in American society without a bit of Conservative harassment to be found. That is, unless you categorize the New Black Panther Party and King Samir Shabazz as some, as yet unknown, flavor of Conservative:

Sadly, the video above is now missing the clip embeded below and the good King Shabazz does not appear when searched on their site. He shouts from a bull horn that he wants to kill all white people and screams at Black men "sliding through South street with filthy White cracker whores". National Geographic terms this as King Shabazz preaching separatism "only to his people."

Point being, nothing has changed with the Progressives/Socialists/Leftists of the 1860s.

No Socialist Watches His Own Video Clips

2011-11-29T10:33:00.001-05:00

It is impossible to surf the Leftist dominated 'net without finding some hilarious post from a Leftist/Communist/Socialist. One can avoid porn easier than one can avoid clueless Leftists who do not even read or watch what they comment on. This exhibit is much more blatant than my observations about Leftists and PBS.

Behold the caption by dwendt66 for the following video of Jerry Rubin hawking a book:
A McCarthyite suggests to Jerry Rubin on a 1970 Donahue episode if his new book "Do It" advocates a Communist take over of the USA.
Now, here is the video:

That 'McCarthyite' was quoting from Jerry Rubin's book, DO iT! and at 0:44 Rubin responded: "I call it a Communist takeover of all private property." Rubin continues on about his advocacy for Communism and expresses his belief that the peoples of Latin America, Asia and Africa have the right to "take over American land."

For those who do not know how Jerry Rubin met his demise, he died jaywalking on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. The glowing New York Times "week in review" story glosses over the circumstances that the Seattle Times revealed three paragraph-sentences into their story on 29 NOV 1994:

Rubin had been at the University of California-Los Angeles Medical Center since Nov. 14 (1994), when he was hit by a car while jaywalking across Wilshire Boulevard near his Brentwood home.

Note that the Brentwood area of Los Angeles was and still is a pretty expensive neighborhood. The Wikipedia entry reveals: It was a weekday evening and traffic was heavy, with three lanes in each direction. A car swerved to miss Rubin but a second car, immediately behind the first, was unable to avoid him.

The reader can digest all that themselves without further comment from me.

Christopher Hitchens On The Hypocrisy Of The Left And More Buckley

2011-11-27T15:01:00.001-05:00

A few choice video clips.
Christopher Hitchens on the hypocrisy of the Left with respect to the Iraq war:

William F. Buckley and Christopher Hitchens discuss the counter culture and the counter counter culture Hitchens & Buckley: The New Left Out (3/5):

Hitchens & Buckley: Joint Agreement (4/5)

Hitchens tackles a typical West hating Marxist

Firing Line: A Distinction Between Left And Liberal By Malcolm Muggeridge, Plus Other Buckley Videos

2011-11-26T09:31:00.001-05:00

William F. Buckley, Jr. talks with Malcolm Muggeridge about the distinction between Left and Liberal. Bonus, how Mrs. Roosevelt did more damage than Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler, i.e, how Liberalism is bad. Strikes me as similar to how Libertarians view things.

Here (sorry, no embed), Buckley talks about Getting it Right just after its release in 2003. His introduction to the book is great, covering "the conservative scene" of the 1950s. During question time, an audience member from AP informs him that Daniel Patrick Moynihan has died and asks Buckley for a few words.

Added bonus. William F. Buckley objects to being called a "crypto-Nazi" by Gore Vidal and threatens to hit him so hard that he will "stay plastered." Over the years Buckley's phrasing has been twisted into "stay stoned."

Gore Vidal: As far as I'm concerned, the only sort of pro-crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself.

William F. Buckley: Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in your god damn face and you'll stay plastered.

Only included because I have been looking for this clip for years and finally found it.

Still looking for a speech Buckley gave about how "the Left has won" in our society.

Coming soon to a gun show near you!