What the Left -- Still -- Doesn't Get...

Millions dead for one bad idea. (Hat tip to Bureaucrash)

Islam is the Religion of...?

Look at a map, scour a variety of news sources, consult a history book.

Wherever and whenever Islam is spreading (or trying to spread), note the dominant circumstance.

Hint; Islam is not a "religion of peace" -- 'never was, and becomes less so daily.

Like so many over-the-top authoritarian ideologies "with a mission," Islam feeds off the sense of weakness it sees in it's adversaries. Fifty years ago, a "bold move" by the middle eastern warrior cult would have been crushed in days, but that was before Jimmy Carter and other Western fools who have, in essence, told Islam, "your time has come. With a little effort and the loss of some 'martyrs' the world can be yours."

Islam is not a religion of peace, it's a political/religious ideology of oppression, cruelty, and violence -- it always has been. The fact that many of its followers are relatively benign does not diminish its danger.

The Jimmy Carter, Democrat, Euro-spineless approach to Jihad is the second greatest danger in the world today. The first is Islam itself.

(Take note the next time you hear of a Muslim proclaiming Islam to be a religion of peace and, in the same breath, stating their plan to kill anyone who sees it as otherwise)

The Semi-pseudo Not Quite a Super Power That May Never Be a Super Power

Like many, I just assume that "the 21st century will belong to China" -- that America's brief time as "top dog" will be overridden by the usual forces of history that compel change. Maybe I'm wrong...

City Journal recently posted an excellent article that affords some rare insight into the reality of China as a looming super power.

Some excerpts:

"...But China’s success is, at least in part, a mirage. True, 200 million of her subjects, fortunate to be working for an expanding global market, increasingly enjoy a middle-class standard of living. The remaining 1 billion, however, remain among the poorest and most exploited people in the world, lacking even minimal rights and public services. Popular discontent simmers, especially in the countryside, where it often flares into violent confrontation with Communist Party authorities. China’s economic “miracle” is rotting from within..."

"...Before the totalitarian reign of Mao Zedong and his immediate successors, never in human history had an entire nation been under such intense surveillance. The Chinese not only had to speak alike; they had to think alike. The Communist Party regulated every aspect of private life. In the sixties, it even sought to anesthetize all feeling, commanding hundreds of millions of Chinese to repeat mindlessly the slogan of the day; one of Mao’s sayings would have to preface any “personal conversation.” A few second-rate books were the only permissible reading material, and eight revolutionary operas provided the sole entertainment. Placed everywhere—city squares, railway stations, factories, and offices—Party loudspeakers blared martial music from dawn to dusk, making it physically impossible for people to speak or think. The state imprisoned and killed untold numbers of its subjects..."

"...Many goods that China produces are worthless, Mao Yushi reminds me—especially those made by public companies. About 100,000 such Chinese enterprises continue to run in the old Maoist style, churning out substandard products because they’ve got to hit the targets that the Party sets and provide employment to those the Party cannot dismiss, not because they’re responding to any market demand. Most public-sector firms don’t even have real accounting procedures, so there’s no way of ascertaining profitability. “China is not a market economy,” Mao [Yushi] says bluntly.

The Party gives the banks lists of people to whom loans should go, and the rationale is frequently political or personal, not economic. Indeed, in many cases, banks are not to ask for repayment. That investment decisions obey political considerations and not the law of the market is the Chinese economy’s central flaw, responsible at least in part, Mao Yushi believes, for the large number of empty office buildings and infrequently used new airports and an unemployment rate likely closer to 20 percent than to the officially acknowledged 3.5 percent..."

"...Still, hasn’t growth created an independent middle class that will push for, and eventually obtain, greater political freedom? Many in the West think so, looking to the South Korean example, but Mao Yushi isn’t convinced. What exists in China, he argues, is a class of “parvenus,” newcomers whose purchasing power depends on their proximity to the Party rather than their education or entrepreneurial achievements. Except for a handful of genuine businessmen, the parvenus work in the military, public administration, or state enterprises, or for firms ostensibly private but, in fact, owned by the Party. The Party picks up the tab for almost all their imported luxury cars, two-thirds of their mobile phones, and three-quarters of their restaurant bills, as well as their call girls, their “study” trips abroad, and their lavish spending at Las Vegas casinos. And it can withdraw these advantages at any time..."

Of course, the author may be wrong. China may still not surprise us all and become the 21st century's economic and cultural giant. That would of course make a lot of people happy. After all, look at all the horrible things America has done (in the hyperbolic minds of partisans). And China's "revolution" only killed somewhere around 60 million people -- cut 'em some slack.

It would be nice if the citizens of China toppled their antiquated authoritarian state. If they became the new century's guardian of individual freedom and a new catalyst to the pursuit of happiness I couldn't care less if they became the world's leading power. Unfortunately, for now at least, they're still just another communist gulag in spite of the neon and international fast food chains.

Real capitalism and real self-government is still more closely approximated by the much maligned U.S.A. So, like it or not, that may be where the big power continues to lie for some time.

Many intellectuals and academics will surely be disappointed.

So Much for the Left's Prize Showpiece of Bureau-socialism

This is a couple of weeks old but, if you hadn't come across it in your web journeys, it's quite interesting and revealing. The mainstream media doesn't usually let us in on the trials and tribulations of their favorite "workers paradise" -- the socialism-lite showpiece, Sweden.

Of course common sense could have told us that a society that puts the state in charge of virtually all human activity and cowers in the pathetic weak-willed labyrinths of "multiculturalism" would one day pay a price for it's stupidity.

Sweden, as socialist bureau state, has never managed to fully "evolve" into the typical totalitarian dystopia that is the usual path of state worship but its hardly been a fully free and open society where one can utilize their gifts and pursue dreams unhindered by bureau-decrees. So it is that the left in general -- particularly academia -- have chosen it as a model of what can be done to create the perfect planned society (after all, Soviet Russia and Red China turned out to be a bit of an embarrassment with all those corpses piled up in the last century).

As it now turns out, the model bureau state isn't doing so well either and while they haven't made it to the jolly goal of "full communism" that so many may have hoped for, they are well on the road to joining the 21st century caliphate -- now that's "democracy!"

It must be propaganda from the "Islamophobes" (like myself) but it appears that some riots took place recently in Sweden and the culprits were the usual "youths" that Mark Steyn jokes of (mimicking the mainstream media's moniker) when noting those young people with Molotov cocktails screaming "Ala Akbar" (Jihadist Muslims perhaps?).

The great rallying cry of anti-civilization has now reached the pristine nirvana of leftland's star theme park.

Some great quotes from an informative essay:

..."Native Swedes have thus been reduced to just another ethnic group in Sweden, with no more claim to the country than the Kurds or the Somalis who arrived there last Thursday. The political authorities of the country have erased their own people's history and culture.

Jens Orback, Minister for Democracy, Metropolitan Affairs, Integration and Gender Equality from the Social Democratic Party said during a debate in Swedish radio in 2004 that 'We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.' [now, there's a laugh!]..."


"...A Swedish man was nearly killed for the crime of wearing clothes with his own national flag while Sweden was participating in the 2006 football World Cup. Some "Multicultural youths" found this to be an intolerable provocation, and the 24-year-old man was run down by a car in Malmö, where Muhammad is becoming the most common name for newborn boys..."

"...The wave of robberies the city of Malmö has witnessed is part of a "war against the Swedes." This is the explanation given by young robbers from immigrant background in interviews with Petra Åkesson. "When we are in the city and robbing we are waging a war, waging a war against the Swedes." This argument was repeated several times. "Power for me means that the Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet." The boys explain, laughingly, that "there is a thrilling sensation in your body when you're robbing, you feel satisfied and happy, it feels as if you've succeeded, it simply feels good." "We rob every single day, as often as we want to, whenever we want to. The Swedes don't do anything, they just give us the stuff. They're so wimpy...."

"...Why does the government dispense with the social contract and attack its own people like this? Well, for starters, because it can. Sweden is currently arguably the most politically repressive and totalitarian country in the Western world. It also has the highest tax rates. That could be a a coincidence, but I'm not sure that it is. The state has become so large and powerful that is has become an autonomous organism with a will of its own. The people are there to serve the state, not vice versa. And because state power penetrates every single corner of society, including the media, there are no places left to mount a defense if the state decides to attack you."

It has been said jokingly that while other countries are states with armies, Pakistan is an army with a state. Likewise, it could be argued that Sweden started out being a nation with a bureaucracy and ended up being a bureaucracy with a nation. In fact, the bureaucracy formally abolished the very nation it was supposed to serve. Its representatives are no longer leaders of a people, but caretakers preoccupied only with advancing their own careers through oiling and upholding, if possible expanding, the bureaucratic machinery..."

"...The then Minister of Education, Mr. Ingvar Carlsson, defined the purpose of schooling: "It is to produce a well adjusted, good member of society. It teaches people to respect the consensus, and not to sabotage it." He also on one occasion said that "School is the spearhead of Socialism." Mr. Carlsson was Swedish Prime Minister as late as 1996..."

"...This is how Mrs Maj Bossom-Nordboe, then departmental chief of at the Directorate of Schools, expressed it: "It's useless to build up individuality, because unless people learned to adapt themselves to society, they would be unhappy. Liberty is not emphasized. Instead, we talk about the freedom to give up freedom. The accent is on the social function of children, and I will not deny that we emphasize the collective..."

...Tragic, but more living proof that those on the left are utter fools.

Viva La Sanity!

Apparently an increasing number of citizens in France are starting to "smell the [Arabian] coffee" and have chosen a new president with a reasonable view of current events and possible methods of successfully dealing with them.

May France succeed in turning its stagnant socialist marsh (well on the path to Caliphate status) into the vibrant and dynamic creative force it had been in former eras.

Also, may it's population see the well founded logic of it's new leader in being a friend to the super power across the sea -- rather than a snobbish stumbling block to the advances of freedom and prosperity.

Mark Steyn has some interesting observations in this regard;

"...Not all French youth is so self-deluded. I notice, for example, every time I'm across the pond in my corner of South Kensington that one hears more and more French spoken on the street. There are somewhere between 400 and 500,000 French citizens living in Britain's capital. London is now the seventh biggest French-speaking city in the world. These are young talented dynamic people who like the same things about France the British and American tourists do — the vin, the cuisine, the couture, the Provencal farmhouses and the Cote d'Azur's topless beaches — but have concluded that it is no longer a society in which you can fulfill your economic potential. They would presumably be Sarkozy supporters, but, like many who feel the odds are stacked against them, they chose in the end to bail out.

As for those who remain, they're sick of crime and unemployment and on the whole could do with rather fewer Muslims on the streets, but they're not yet willing to give up on the economic protectionism and lavish social programs that lead, inexorably, to the crime and unemployment and a general economic and demographic decline leaving the nation dependent on mass immigration and accelerating Islamization..."

The Imaginary “Lotto of Life” and the Thing Gap

I've known more than a few “left-leaning” people who buy lottery tickets. I've never quite understood why, to them, its okay for someone to fork over a few dollars and, figuratively, roll a dice and become rich through no effort, thought, or sweat, yet its perceived as bad for someone to work long hours, shoulder responsibility and stress, take risks, and become rich. I believe such people's rationale for their skewed appraisal of wealth acquisition stems from a belief in the fable that common capitalist wealth could only be attained from life's “roll of a dice” -- success as mere “lucky” chance. Then, there's the other popular assumption that wealth is merely "distributed" and thus somehow taken by some to enrich others. If that were the case it would mean that poor countries once had multi-trillion dollar economies and every time a rich person gets rich, I and everyone else gets poorer (the old axiom that isn't even vaguely true).

Of course, in the real would, incompetent or lazy rich people loose fortunes and smart or practical poor people become wealthy all the time. “The poor” sounds like some static group, forever bound to their chain of “lottery” losses. In fact both poor and rich (and all in between) are individuals most of which can and do rise and fall in status largely based on personal choices and decisions. Don't finish school and have a baby at age 16 -- buy the loosing ticket. Think smart, get an education (or at least the piece of paper that says you have one), bide your time in the less than perfect job...climb the ladder -- win “life's lotto.” Many people can and do, over time, rise above adversity while others can take a stroke of good fortune and loose it all in in remarkably short time. There are some good and bad dice rolls for all of us but neither are the standard of our existence and certainly don't operate independently from our own choices.

Climbing a ladder, attaining a higher income, or becoming rich means you can purchase a higher standard of living. Now you've got the latest plasma screen T.V. while lazy Bob is channel surfing on his aunt's old “regular” T.V.; Oh, the injustice! -- a thing gap!

There's is no doubt that a thing gap as well as a “wealth gap” exists in free societies (and the real world in general) – so!

In a market economy “the rich” (higher income people) are always the first to buy new and better products and services (i.e. Cars, T.V.'s, computers – maybe even open-heart surgery). The fact that evil Mr. rich dude buys a new experiment in capitalist marketing means a company can make enough money to cover the product's development and move forward to make more cheaper models, which is why very expensive computers are now affordable computers to the masses. There's still a thing gap of course. The rich guy's got more RAM and a wider screen, but the toiling unwashed aren't exactly destitute (most aren't even toiling or unwashed) while surfing the web on a computer dinosaur purchased six year ago. We're continually told by the socialist PR apparatus (media, entertainment, and "education") that things are "getting worse" yet I don't remember the average home of my youth with a computer or cars with guidance systems. The poor of America who supposedly "go to bed hungry" are among the fattest people on the planet ("insensitivity" intended).

Marx played the stock market (as his contemporary spawn like Noam Chomsky and Micheal Moore do today). Most left-wing people I know buy lottery tickets. I never hear of their disdain for film directors, sports personalties, or lotto winners who are “rich,” yet businessmen, capitalism, and the wealth generated by innovation, and higher standards of living and leisure all continue to be seen as evil by the socialists among us – an “evil” seen as magically bestowed by mere luck. But, for all their hatred of “materialism” and wealth, the critics of advancing capitalist society still like their toys...and still hope they'll win the lottery (the real one that you buy at a government stand).

Do such posing hypocrites really think they're fooling anyone?

Bogus "Revolutions"

Simply put; if a group seizes equal or greater power over a population than a preceding authority, it's NOT a “revolution.” In addition, if private property is seized by the state it can hardly be called a “revolutionary” act.

Neither theft or power grabs are “revolutionary.”

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Power grabs are sometimes made through mere stealth...and, so it is today with the great global warming PR campaign.

It's likely that many have already seen this convenient truth -- a response to the global warming hysteria industry. I would encourage people to view the entire documentary (which is over an hour long) as it touches on all the points made and fabricated by the alarmists of the left's latest and most effective con-job to compel obedience to their stale collectivist dystopia.

By all means consult the rebuttals to this rebuttal as well. If you believe everything teachers, magazines, newspapers, television news, and documentaries have told you, you're probably quite certain that we are on the brink of doom because we have not restrained ourselves enough from modern living. If you still believe the hype and see this documentary, you'll at least be afforded some healthy skepticism to what you've been fed by the domineering clowns of leftland.

Why We Are What We Are...

Andrew Klavan, in a recent post (The Big White Lie) at City Journal (hat tip to Libertas), points out something I've often noticed in my own attempts to pin down why I hate leftism -- it's the phony contrived and dishonest "manners" in their scheme. I still remember cringing in disgust when a snooty little nascent intellectual at grade school would proclaim, "I don't hate anybody" knowing she was one of the most bitter and hate-filled people in the class -- it's always about how much better they are than you or I. That's why they figure they should be the ones with the big bucks and ultimate power instead of those crude, unsophisticated, and "mean-spirited" movers of commerce that have created the modern world. The "good people" want power and they want it now! (Temper-tantrum included free of charge).

Someone recently sent me a video link by a "liberal" (leftist) who explains why they're "a liberal" (better than other people). Note there are plenty of straw-man slights of hand in this amature propaganda piece. Clowns like these really just want to come out and say, "I'm a liberal because I'm noble, peaceful, kind, loving, wise, and good...and you're not."

Klavan's City Journal article offers a splendid response and sums up well some of my own reasons for being a conservative / libertarian:

"The thing I like best about being a conservative is that I don’t have to lie. I don’t have to pretend that men and women are the same. I don’t have to declare that failed or oppressive cultures are as good as mine. I don’t have to say that everyone’s special or that the rich cause poverty or that all religions are a path to God. I don’t have to claim that a bad writer like Alice Walker is a good one or that a good writer like Toni Morrison is a great one. I don’t have to pretend that Islam means peace."

Someone Who's For Us

A rare sober voice from a former member of America's party of bizarre betrayal.

You'll remember that in the recent mid-term elections, the Democrat party did all they could to defeat one of their own. In spite of their efforts, Joseph Lieberman ran as an independent -- and won. Also, in spite of the Democrats' belief that most of America's voters share their views on Iraq, Lieberman was elected against the Democrats hand-picked "anti-war" candidate.

Under normal (pre-9/11) circumstances and before the Jihad of fascist Muslims became so bold, it would be rare to find myself agreeing with a big-government "liberal" on an issue. Lieberman himself would hardly be supportive of the current president if things were as they were in the old paradigm.

As it turns out, liberal Senator Lieberman (like a few Democrats in his former party) is a staunch supporter of the president's actions, post-9/11. He recognizes -- with sound and practical analysis -- who the enemies are and what must be done to effectively defeat them. In this regard he is a rare individual, having been a member of a party that has become "progressively" (no pun intended) weak-willed, defeatist, and incompetent (and, in some cases, virtually treasonous).

There are plenty of sober voices among citizens and representatives in America and the rest of the world. We can only hope their resolve prevails at a time when our second greatest enemy is the stance that supports and encourage our first greatest enemy. To say that one is "either with us or with the terrorists" (as President Bush has done) is not "narrow-minded," "simplistic," or “arrogant,” as some have said. It's an honest appraisal of the facts as they now stand.

It would be nice if fewer of our "own voices" were with the terrorists in spirit, if not actual intent.