Deranged Divisive Defeatist Poseurs For Peace

There are just a few points I review in my head whenever the urge arises to cry and give into the influence of anything the left has to say about foreign policy or international politics. Self-pity is in fact the key to their mindset. Rather than spin into such a narcissistic black hole I turn my attention instead to one or more of the following vexing facts:

• The jihadis have parasitized and warred on civilization (not just Jews and Christians, not just the West) continuously for 1400 years, before unclean infidel boots ever touched sacred Arabian soil, before Bush, and long before US soldiers invaded Afghanistan or Iraq.
• The jihadis will continue to attack even if pacifist infidels silence their neocons and disband their military.
• The jihadis have co-opted Europe and Russia and within decades will conquer them through immigration and reproduction.
• Africa is a vast social, political, environmental, and economic disaster area wracked by jihad and genocide.
• Secular socialist totalitarians in South/Central America and East Asia are not satisfied with simply producing goods for trade and feeding their people. They will continue to threaten and blackmail their more civilized neighbors.
• The nuclear and biowarfare genies are out of their bottles.

The world really is a violent and dangerous place, and it isn't likely to change simply because pacifists wish it were not. The world's problems weren't caused by Bush and they're not going to die when he does. This is what I think when accosted by self-absorbed progressives pontificating about corruption, incompetence, or lying:

WASHINGTON -- Convinced this is their moment, tens of thousands marched Saturday in an anti-war demonstration linking military families, ordinary people and an icon of the Vietnam protest movement in a spirited call to get out of Iraq.

Celebrities, a half-dozen lawmakers and protesters from distant states rallied in the capital under a sunny sky, seizing an opportunity to press their cause with a Congress restive on the war and a country that has turned against the conflict.

We hear alot of complaining from leftists about divisive politics. Would that look anything like a gaggle of rich and famous movie stars spewing seditious bile to a mob, manipulating the masses with spectacle and demagogy?

Well who cares what pseudo-intellectual thespians think? After all, they're not paid to think. What's really scary are the petty partisan pronouncements of those elected to positions of authority. They are paid to think.

The House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. John Conyers, threatened to use congressional spending power to try to stop the war. "George Bush has a habit of firing military leaders who tell him the Iraq war is failing," he said, looking out at the masses. "He can't fire you." Referring to Congress, the Michigan Democrat added: "He can't fire us.

"The founders of our country gave our Congress the power of the purse because they envisioned a scenario exactly like we find ourselves in today. Now only is it in our power, it is our obligation to stop Bush."

Spendthrift liberals aren't normally concerned about the cost of anything, so something else is going on. It has to do with failure. When the goal is success any sane executive would fire any underling who can see only failure, and nobody would question it. In war you can't protest or defund your way to victory. But by undermining their country's will and ability to fight Conyers and his anti-war cohorts are trying to ensure victory. For themselves. It's easy. Cut off funds, Bush goes down.

One of the great mysteries of leftist psychology is how they can feel inspired by rhetoric about thwarting their country's commander in chief in a time of war, but then bristle when others question their belief in democracy, their support for the military, or their patriotism. How can people calling for peace be so vitriolic? Who, other than their similarly conflicted angry-pacifist friends, do they think they're fooling?

On the stage rested a coffin covered with a U.S. flag and a pair of military boots, symbolizing American war dead. On the Mall stood a large bin filled with tags bearing the names of Iraqis who have died.

It's a mortal sin when the neocons exploit the innocent lives taken on 9/11. To merely remember them nothing but a sly attempt to whip up hate and violence. But exploiting the brave warriors who volunteered and died for their country since 9/11? That's just fine.

There is no draft. But that doesn't stop the anti-war zealots from adopting a new victim group: those duped into volunteering for military service in the middle of a war, apparently unaware it will be dangerous and somehow under the impression they can choose where they will be sent. The zealots brazenly hijack the voices of their ideological opposites, the military dead, by compulsively gathering disrespectful arrays of boots, coffins, or lamely constructed crosses. The point might have had some basis back when a letter from Selective Services meant an involuntary tour of Vietnam. Today it ignores the reality that our soldiers volunteer.

So the pacifist view is dim and dishonest. They want Bush to lose, they don't care who they have to exploit or manipulate or who else will suffer to make it happen. They don't recognize that Iraq is just one battlefield in the never-ending Jihad. They deny the Jihad is even real. They think the CIA created Al Qaeda and orchestrated 9/11. They think Muslims are radicalized by poverty and oppression. They harp on the mistakes of others but never admit any of their own.

They note the complexities of the world and ridicule black and white solutions. Except when they propose them. They are hypersensitive to consequences after the fact, not before. They blame Bush for, at best causing all the suffering in Iraq out of negligence, and at worst deliberately lying to get exactly what he wanted in spite of the suffering it would predictably cause. No blame for Saddam, the Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, Saudis, Russians, Europeans, or UN. It's all on Bush and the warmongers who support him. It's easy to put the consequences of immediate withdrawal in the same terms. Its advocates will be entirely to blame for the ensuing bloodbath and emboldening of totalitarians, at best because they are blind, and at worst because they consider it a tolerable price to pay for setting back Bush.

A reasonable person can argue that the US is responsible for some of the world's mess. To argue that the US is to blame for most of it is ridiculous. To advocate that we simply surrender our future to the real warmongers of the world is deranged.

In the crowd, signs recalled the November elections that defeated the Republican congressional majority in part because of Bush's Iraq policy. "I voted for peace," one said.

They think voting for peace will produce it. QED.

Immigrodenial

This tanstaaflevs guy understands:

They can't face the truth. They blow smoke pointing to past things somebody else did to somebody else. Their first concern is for "their people" but they call anyone who disagrees with them "racist"! No respect for what US citizens want. Repeated claims that by some miracle absorbing a million impoverished migrants a year "helps" the economy. No answer for the disease, crime, gang, and race violence these "undocumented workers" and their seldom-mentioned dependents bring.

Over time the US found a particularly successful balance of its systems of government, education, banking, production, and commerce to create tremendous industry and innovation, and thus tremendous wealth. Other nations can choose to emulate this example or find other paths to make their people happy. Most, including Mexico, have far less tolerant immigration policies and are more severe in enforcing them.

US society is successful because there is respect for the law and respect for the freedom and property of others. The unashamed impulse to pursue and defend the interests of yourself and your posterity is very much a part of what it means to be an American. It is woven into the US Constitution. If you don't like the constitution then you are at odds with the loyal citizens whose principles it describes. Without respect for these race-blind principles there is no point arguing - you are either an invader or subversive. In either case you deserve only to be shown the door.

Likewise Jihad supporters. The Jihad is based on socio-politico-religious ideology, not race. It is not a clash of civilizations. Those who wage Jihad to impose Sharia on us all threaten the very existence of the civilization. The Islamofascists will gladly play democracy, until they win. Then it's all Sharia, all the time. Suicidal immigration policy and one-way multiculturalism is tearing England apart as Europe morphs into Eurabia.

For a racist view consult the self-discriminating hispanic/latino/mestizo advocacy organizations who brazenly seek favor for "their people" while trying to silence the free expression of any political opinion hostile to their own. If a guero said anything like this they'd be arrested for hate crimes. I say deport illegal aliens and reduce legal immigration no matter what their races or nationalities are. If the immigrants were 100% Eskimo my position would be unchanged.

The moral of the injustices done to yesterday's natives is that we should ignore the rights of today's natives? Besides, can you imagine the shitholes we'd be living in if we all still lived like "indigenous peoples"? If the luddites pining for such ideals ever win the lottery they'll understand "who pays the piper calls the tune". Meanwhile they brazenly reach in everyone else's pockets.

"They only come for the jobs" is an admission that they do not care for the US and do not wish to assimilate.

Let's hear some more about how they're going to save social security. And even if the poorest workers, contributing the least and receiving the most, could somehow "save" SS, who says it is OK to exploit them? The advocates of the poor, downtrodden, little guy? The truth is they're exploiting those of us who pay the bulk of the taxes, buy the insurance, make the investments. They slow down our kids' classes. They clog our roads and hospitals. In return we get cheap vegetables. It's not fair and I resent it.

Lax border enforcement means massive social, economic, racial, environmental, and epidemological costs and consequences, borne mainly by current US citizens. The immigration flood causes lots of problems. But even though the immigrants bring violence, crime, disease, and racial friction they aren't mistreated, they aren't forced to run and hide in fear. They move amongst us like they belong here and are rarely molested even by the police who have every right to seek them out and deport them. That's why they call the job "law enforcement".

The closest thing to suffering we hear is the hyperventilating they experience when they imagine the gringos might suddenly wise up. In the real world they literally have to make themselves unignorable - by way of say identity theft, crime sprees, or walking right into ICE's hands. Then they get deported. Maybe.

The US has a long history of welcoming legal immigrants in numbers and with generousity well in excess of most other countries. Too generous, I think. And while that may make me stingy or selfish, let some saint who doesn't suffer these conceits throw the first stone. Let him give away his things and decide his future, not mine.

Sailer on Dawkins and God

Poking around VDARE turned up an essay Steve Sailer wrote back in 1999 regarding Darwin, evolution, and God. I found it interesting because it is similar but more completely developed and better written than what I recently wrote.

"A Miracle Happens Here:" Darwin's Enemies on the Right
Part I of a Two Part Series
by Steve Sailer, 11/20/99

Darwin seems to lose out with the public primarily when his supporters force him into a mano-a-mano Thunderdome death match against the Almighty. Most people seem willing to accept Darwinism as long as they don't have to believe in nothing but Darwinism. Thus, the strident tub-thumping for absolute atheism by evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins, author of the great book "The Selfish Gene," is counter-productive.

But biologists should be wary of atheistical triumphalism for more than merely tactical reasons. Dawkins' seems to have forgotten the point made by "Darwin's Bulldog," Thomas H. Huxley, that true skepticism implies agnosticism, not atheism. The smug atheism rampant among prominent evolutionists today is reminiscent of that of the physicists in 1899, just before the 20th Century unleashed a host of unwelcome surprises upon them. Unfortunately, biologists don't know enough of the history of physics and cosmology to see how atheistic dogmatism can mislead and slow scientific progress.

In other words, it's bad juju to let your dogma drive your kharma.

Sailer goes on to describe the plight of cosmologists. Faced with evidence that our universe has a finite age and is improbably tuned to carbon-based life's needs they still feel no need to invoke a Designer. Goodness no. Instead they posit an infinite number of universes.

Isn't it just wonderous? Next they'll be hypothesizing an infinite number of Flying Spaghetti Monsters. There's just as much evidence. Cosmologists don't need no stinkin Creator. They feel much more comfortable invoking Darwin to infinity and beyond.

This infinite universes concept is a sensationally creative idea. Of course, in its utter untestability, it's not exactly science. In truth, it is theological speculation at its most grandiose. Philosopher Robert C. Koons notes, "Originally, atheists prided themselves on being no-nonsense empiricists, who limited their beliefs to what could be seen and measured. Now, we find ourselves in a situation in which the only alternative to belief in God is belief in an infinite number of unobservable parallel universes! You've come along way, baby!" At minimum, we now know that our natural world cannot account for its own existence. To do that, we need to assume the existence of some sort of supernatural word. And even if some enormous breakthrough let us validate the existence of this superuniverse, we'd probably end up having to assume that it was brought about by some sort of hyperuniverse beyond that, and on and on.

In summary, for reasons stretching from the gritty world of tactical politics to the most ethereal conjectures about the cosmos (or cosmoses), those who claim to be skeptics should try harder to keep their minds open.

Amen.

The Drive to Silence

What drives those who would stifle free speech? The arrogance of their superior ideas? The insecurity of unfavorable comparison? Impatience, intolerance, delusion, ignorance - all of the above?

What good comes of censorship? What is the noble purpose? Is it "fairness"? Who will judge what is fair? Is it "efficiency"? To save us from arguing with those who are obviously wrong? Who decides what is obvious?

This totalitarian impulse to silence opposition has appeared in many places across time. Today it is a hallmark of Leftism. It is a Leftist's kneejerk reaction when faced with any ideological challenge.

Thus they seek to shut down FOX News. To muzzle Rush Limbaugh and "balance" talk radio. To criminalize climate change "denial". To teach only Darwinist dogma. To impose academic speech codes. To silence those who don't accept their anti-religion religion. To ostracize anyone who notes the differences between sexes, races, or individuals.

Yes, the media is biased. Yes, money is a megaphone. Yes, man is hopelessly flawed. That is no matter. Those who fear argument fear truth. Those who fear truth fear reality. Be not afraid. Reality trumps all eventually.

Islamodenial

A few things the jihadis don't want said, journalists won't say, and moonbats don't want to know.

Who founded Islam, when and where?

There were pagan traditions in Arabia, particularly among those based in the trading centers, such as Mecca and Medina. Kaaba, the black rock at Mecca, was worshipped by certain tribes with a circling ritual that was later borrowed by Muhammad’s followers. Likewise, Allah was the name that had been given to the moon god, many centuries before Muhammad's time.

Muhammad later created Islam based on these crude pagan practices as well as basic theological elements of Christianity and Judaism according to his own (often inaccurate) understanding. His erroneous interpretation of Christianity, for example, is often attributed to his early experiences with fringe cults in the Palestinian region.

Muhammad was born around 570 AD in Mecca. He grew up poor and orphaned on the margins of society, which was controlled by tribal chiefs and trading merchants. He worked for his uncle as a camel herder. Although his uncle had some standing in the community, Muhammad himself did not rise above his lowly station until he was 25, when he met and married a wealthy widow who was 15 years older.

Having now attained a comfortable lifestyle and the idle time that wealth affords, Muhammad would wander off occasionally for periods of meditation and contemplation. One day, at the age of 40, he told his wife that he had been visited by the angel Gabriel. Thus began a series of revelations which lasted until his death. The Qur’an is based on the oral traditions of these revelations. The Hadith is a collection of narrations of the life and deeds of Muhammad. The Sunnah is the said to be his way of life.

With his wife’s influence and support, Muhammad began trying to convert those around him to his new religion - an amalgamation of Judeo-Christian theology and pagan tradition that grew more sophisticated over time. In the beginning, he did his best to compromise his teachings with the predominant beliefs of the community’s elders, such as combining all 300 of their idols under the name “Allah,” although it wasn’t enough to prevent the resentment of the influential leadership, which mocked his humble background while fearing his influence (with good reason).

At first, he was only successful with friends and family. After twelve years, “the street preacher” could only boast about 70 determined followers, called Muslims, who followed him to the community of Medina after they were chased from Mecca by persecution.

It was at Medina that his message began to become more intolerant and ruthless as he gained the power to be so.

What is the Koran?

In some Westerners it engenders other emotions. For Gibbon it was an "incoherent rhapsody of fable," for Carlyle an "insupportable stupidity," while here is what the German scholar Salomon Reinach thought: "From the literary point of view, the Koran has little merit. Declamation, repetition, puerility, a lack of logic and coherence strike the unprepared reader at every turn. It is humiliating to the human intellect to think that this mediocre literature has been the subject of innumerable commentaries, and that millions of men are still wasting time absorbing it."

What does it say?

The Quran contains dozens of verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers, and kill the infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.

These verses are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not embedded within historical context (as are nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence). They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subjective as anything else in the Qur'an.

What is naskh?

This idea is crucial as a guide to the relationship of the Qur’an’s peaceful passages to its violent ones. Suras 16, 29, 52, 73, and 109 — the sources of many of the Qur'an's verses of peace and tolerance — are all Meccan. That means that many Muslims, guided by commentators such as those above and the imams who teach from them, see these suras only in light of what was revealed later in Medina. Being the last or next-to-last sura revealed, sura 9 is generally understood as being the Qur’an’s last word on jihad, and all the rest of the book — including the “tolerance verses” — must be read in its light.

How did Islam spread?

Abu Bekr, the first successor of the Prophet Mohammed, was head of the Moslem community from 632 to 634. He set about patching up the internal unrest between tribes. Then Omar, caliph (head of the Moslem community) from 634 to 644, initiated an explosive expansion of Islam. He seized Syria, then Jerusalem and finally Damascus in 638 after having defeated Heraclius. In 635, other Arab troops launched an assault on the Sassanian Empire, and crossed the Euphrates. The downfall of the empire was well underway when the Arab horsemen dealt the deathblow to the Sassanid dynasty and overran Persia first entering Ctesiphon in 637. Successive victories were to follow. They emerged victorious from the engagement at Nahavand in 642, which left the way open for them to enter the Iranian plateau. The conquest of Persia continued with the fall of Afghanistan (651) and then Transoxiana (674).

What caused the Crusades?

The most immediate cause for the Crusades is also the most obvious: Muslim incursions into previously Christian lands. A "Crusade" had been underway on the Iberian peninsula since 711 when Muslim invaders conquered most of the region. Better known as the Reconquista, it lasted until the tiny kingdom of Grenada was reconquered in 1492.

In the East, Muslim attacks on land controlled by the Byzantine Empire had been going on for a long time. After the battle of Manzikert in 1071, much of Asia Minor fell to the Seljuk Turks, and it was unlikely that this last outpost of the Roman Empire would be able to survive further concentrated assaults. It wasn't long before the Byzantine Christians asked for help from Europe, and it's no surprise that their plea was answered.

A military expedition against the Turks held out a lot of promise, not least of which was the possible reunification of the Eastern and Western churches, should the West prove capable of defeating the Muslim menace which had for so long plagued the East. Aside from that, however, was the fact that if Constantinople fell then all of Europe would be open to invasion, a prospect that weighed heavily on the minds of European Christians.

Another cause for the Crusades was the increase in problems experienced by Christian pilgrims in the region. Pilgrimages were very important to European Christians for religious, social, and political reasons. Anyone who successfully made the long and arduous journey to Jerusalem not only demonstrated their religious devotion, but also became beneficiaries of significant religious benefits. A pilgrimage wiped clean one's plate of sins (sometimes it was a requirement, the sins were so egregious) and in some cases served to minimize future sins as well.

It's all so confusing.

Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity—and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion—has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.

With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed’s death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt—once the most heavily Christian areas in the world—quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

What's going on in Gitmo?

Who's there?

Why?

What about the torture?

“If a guy’s salad isn’t right, I’ll make a phone call to try and get him the correct salad,” the guard said. “To hear that we mistreat them … frustrates you sometimes, because you go out of your way so much to make sure these guys are taken care of as far as medicine, any dental care they need, any nutrition.

“I don’t think people realize how hard we try to keep the detainees as safe and as well cared for as we do, because ‘fair, firm and impartial’ is exactly what we do here,” he said.

The abuse?

Officials said al Qaeda inmates have attacked American guards on a daily basis. During the 12-month period that ended in August 2006, authorities reported 3,232 incidents of detainee misconduct. They included 432 assaults with bodily fluids, 227 physical assaults and 99 efforts to incite a disturbance or riot.

Al Qaeda inmates have been taught to lie about Camp Delta and claim torture. Officials cited a terrorist training manual known as the Manchester Document and seized by British authorities in 2000. The manual directs al Qaeda operatives to make false claims of torture and mistreatment. More than 340 people have been released from Camp Delta.

What are Al Qaeda's goals?

The main mission for which the Military Organization is responsible is:

The overthrow of the godless regimes and their replacement with an Islamic regime. Other missions consist of the following:

1. Gathering information about the enemy, the land, the installations, and the neighbors.

2. Kidnaping enemy personnel, documents, secrets, and arms.

3. Assassinating enemy personnel as well as foreign tourists.

4. Freeing the brothers who are captured by the enemy.

5. Spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy.

6. Blasting and destroying the places of amusement, immorality, and sin; not a vital target.

7. Blasting and destroying the embassies and attacking vital economic centers.

8. Blasting and destroying bridges leading into and out of the cities.

Why?

The young men returning to Allah realized that Islam is not just performing rituals but a complete system: Religion and government, worship and Jihad [holy war], ethics and dealing with people, and the Koran and sword. The bitter situation that the nation has reached is a result of its divergence from Allah's course and his righteous law for all places and times. That [bitter situation] came about as a result of its children's love for the world, their loathing of death, and their abandonment of Jihad [holy war].

Unbelief is still the same. It pushed Abou Jahl- may Allah curse him-and Kureish's valiant infidels to battle the prophet - God bless and keep him - and to torture his companions - may Allah's grace be on them. It is the same unbelief that drove Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, Gadhafi, Hafez Assad, Saleh, Fahed -Allah's curse be upon the non-believing leaders - and all the apostate Arab rulers to torture, kill, imprison, and torment Moslems.

These young men realized that an Islamic government would never be established except by the bomb and rifle. Islam does not coincide or make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it.

The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun.

The young came to prepare themselves for Jihad [holy war], commanded by the majestic Allah's order in the holy Koran. [Koranic verse:] "Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies of Allah and your enemies, and others besides whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know."