Katrina Man (new species?)

Through socialist policies and redistribution, New Orleans has raised from its ruin a new "socialist man". However, instead of working for the collective, this risen New Orleans man does not work at all. He does not live for the collective but lives at the expense of the collective. This reality is drastically different from what Marxists had in mind when referring to the man created from socialism.

To a person with common sense, this seems like an obvious outcome. If you give money to those who stay unemployed, you are not teaching them to work. Rather, you are teaching them how to survive without working.

Let's begin with the supposed housing shortage in New Orleans. The government is giving more and more trailers to the citizens of the city. Even the officials of the city constantly talk about the "housing shortage." Every New Orleanian knows differently.

A simple look at Craigslist.org reveals the plentitude of homes available in the area. These are houses available for rent on just one website which hardly represents all rentable properties in New Orleans.

If there are houses available, why do people still request trailers? It's really simple. Free is always better. Sure, there are homes available but who wants to pay when they don't have to. The government interprets this demand as a housing shortage.
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Attack of the Global Warmistas

Is sanity finally coming to the anthropogenic climate change issue? Don't hold your breath.

It is an inconvenient truth that so far, 2006 has been a year in which major segments of the media have given up on any quest for journalistic balance, fairness and objectivity when it comes to climate change. The global warming alarmists [warmistas] and their friends in the media have attempted to smear scientists who dare question the premise of man-made catastrophic global warming, and as a result some scientists have seen their reputations and research funding dry up.

The media has so relentlessly promoted global warming fears that a British group called the Institute for Public Policy Research – and this from a left leaning group – issued a report in 2006 accusing media outlets of engaging in what they termed “climate porn” in order to attract the public’s attention.

Bob Carter, a Paleoclimate geologist from James Cook University in Australia has described how the media promotes climate fear:

“Each such alarmist article is larded with words such as ‘if’, ‘might’, ‘could’, ‘probably’, ‘perhaps’, ‘expected’, ‘projected’ or ‘modeled’ - and many involve such deep dreaming, or ignorance of scientific facts and principles, that they are akin to nonsense,” professor Carter concluded in an op-ed in April of this year. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/09/ixworld.html

Another example of this relentless hype is the reporting on the seemingly endless number of global warming impact studies which do not even address whether global warming is going to happen. They merely project the impact of potential temperature increases.

The media endlessly hypes studies that purportedly show that global warming could increase mosquito populations, malaria, West Nile Virus, heat waves and hurricanes, threaten the oceans, damage coral reefs, boost poison ivy growth, damage vineyards, and global food crops, to name just a few of the global warming linked calamities. Oddly, according to the media reports, warmer temperatures almost never seem to have any positive effects on plant or animal life or food production. Fortunately, the media’s addiction to so-called ‘climate porn’ has failed to seduce many Americans.

According to a July Pew Research Center Poll, the American public is split about evenly between those who say global warming is due to human activity versus those who believe it’s from natural factors or not happening at all.

In addition, an August Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that most Americans do not attribute the cause of recent severe weather events to global warming, and the portion of Americans who believe global warming is naturally occurring is on the rise.

Yes -- it appears that alarmism has led to skepticism.

The American people know when their intelligence is being insulted. They know when they are being used and when they are being duped by the hysterical left.

The American people deserve better -- much better -- from our fourth estate. We have a right to expect accuracy and objectivity on climate change coverage. We have a right to expect balance in sourcing and fair analysis from reporters who cover the issue.

Above all, the media must roll back this mantra that there is scientific “consensus” of impending climatic doom as an excuse to ignore recent science. After all, there was a so-called scientific “consensus” that there were nine planets in our solar system until Pluto was recently demoted.

Breaking the cycles of media hysteria will not be easy since hysteria sells -- it’s very profitable. But I want to challenge the news media to reverse course and report on the objective science of climate change, to stop ignoring legitimate voices this scientific debate and to stop acting as a vehicle for unsubstantiated hype.

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Who you gonna believe, the New York Times or your lyin' eyes?
Groucho (not Karl) Marx

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Update: 28 Sept @ 1305 hrs

If you didn't believe Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" in which he dissembles the possibility of Global Warming go to a real source of scientific fact at the site scientists going for Global Warmista grants don't want you to read..
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/Index.jsp

ht/ dick mcdonald

Update: 29 Sept @ 14:29 hrs

"Here is the real agenda behind the global warming crusade. Global [Warmistas] like Al Gore use the specter of imminent climate and geological disasters (which, even if possible, are probably hundreds of years away, when we are likely to be living in a completely different technological environment) to scare the public into accepting more and more government control over their social and economic life. Just as “universal access to health care” is the wedge issue that leads to socialized medicine, “global warming” is the wedge issue that leads to a socialized economy. And we all know what socialism leads to."

Steven M. Warshawsky

Stating the Obvious can get you Beheaded

Recent allusions by Pope Benedict XVI to a 14th century exchange between a Byzantine emperor and a muslim "scholar" have caused a global rage my muslims resulting in the murder of an aging nun in Somalia and the torching of dozens of christian churches world wide. The question remains , who will man the walls in this, the 21st century?

By Andrew Bostom

In 846 a fleet of Arab jihadists arrived at the mouth of the Tiber, made their way to Rome, sacked the city, and carried away from the basilica of St. Peter all of the gold and silver it contained. This was a typical Muslim jihad naval razzia [raid]. Earlier, by 827, the Arabs had conquered Sicily, which they kept under their suzerainty for two and a half centuries. Thus was Rome itself under serious threat from a nearby Muslim colony.

During the same ninth century when Rome was assaulted and Sicily was conquered, the Muslim armies occupied Bari and Brindisi in Italy, for thirty years; Taranto for forty; Benevento for ten; they attacked Naples, Capua, Calabria, and Sardinia several times; they put the abbey of Montecassino to fire and the sword; they even made razzias into northern Italy, arriving from Spain and crossing over the Alps.

In 847, the year after the aforementioned naval assault on Rome, the newly elected Pope Leo IV began the construction of walls around the entire perimeter of the Vatican, 12 meters high and equipped with 44 towers. He completed the project in six years. These are the “Leonine” walls, and significant traces of them still remain. But precious few today understand that these walls were erected to defend the Holy See of Peter from an Islamic jihad. And many of those who do know this remain silent out of misplaced discretion.

HT/atlas shrugs

ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ would suggest that the west keep its powder dry and heed the motto:
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

The "Venezuelan" Flap

Some readers have complained that Leonidas engages in too much "quoting and pasting" of others' opinions without comment. It is true that Leonidas attempts to confine his first person comments to personal experience and recent events have lent him the opportunity to do so:

Venezuela holds a special place in our cruising experiences as we spent two years in that country and made many friends there. Also growing up in the "oil patch" and being familiar with its workings contributes to the mix.

Venezuela is blessed (cursed?) with a substantial reserve of crude oil. The development of these resources was primarily accomplished by North American expertise, capital and technology. In the early 1960s The Venezuelan government nationalized the oil industry and seized control of the assets of several North American oil companies including Sinclair and Chevron. The wealth generated by oil production was diverted to social programs and a major increase in the various bureaucracies. Lately the wealth has been used by the (demented?) anti American soon to be President for Life Hugo Chavez who came to power in 1998 to purchase substantial quantities of military equipment such as 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, 24 MIG 20 fighter aircraft and 53 assault helicopters from Russia. These weapons have not all been distributed to the Venezuelan military (La Guardia Nacional) but have been used to arm Chavez' political base which consists for the most part of the urban proletariat living in the makeshift shacks (ranchitos) on the mountain sides around the capitol. The 40 year experiment in socialism has swelled the ranks of these poor and resulted in the shrinking of the middle class, many of whom have fled to neighboring Colombia as well as Spain and the U.S. Chavez appears to be trying to create fear in his ignorant political base that the U.S. is planning an invasion of the country to seize the oil reserves. A concept that both Leonidas and the remaining middle class of Venezuela find ludicrous.

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat,...defended Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's United Nations speech in which Chavez called President George Bush the devil. Harkin said the comments were "incendiary", then went on to say: "Let me put it this way, I can understand the frustration, ah, and the anger of certain people around the world because of George Bush's policies." Harkin continued what has been frequent criticism of the president's foreign policy. Interestingly enough two unlikely defenders of President Bush have been found in Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel, both Democrats and who have supplied Sr. Chavez with most of his talking points. Oh, I forgot those two are campaigning for re election.

Incidentally, the U.S., neither under the present or any former administration has ever evinced any wish to come in conflict with Venezuela which was the founder of OPEC. It may be in Sr. Chavez' interest to be hostile to the US, but not in the interest of the Venezuelan people. It is sad to observe what was once a great and beautiful nation being dragged down the socialist rat hole a la Cuba.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Know Thy Enemy

By J.P. Mulhern

Ever since September 11 all our Muslim enemies have had the recipe for striking us without fear of retaliation. Get a terrorist group to front for you and avoid leaving proof beyond reasonable doubt of your involvement. If America responds at all it will flail away at the puppet while the puppeteer laughs.

Now that we have taught our enemies this lesson we can’t deter them. If they can melt our cities with nuclear bombs disguised as a yachts, freighters or truckloads of cargo from Mexico, they will. If they can infect a dozen jihadis with smallpox and set off an epidemic that kills millions, they will. If they can bring the horror of Beslan to our shores over and over again, they will.

Whatever they do, they will expect us to continue chasing shadowy terrorists leaving the terror masters free to sponsor more attacks. We have given them every reason to believe that they can safely pummel us into oblivion while we bicker about how to craft a proportional, narrowly-tailored response [and tilt with the "useful idiots" of the left among us].

The price of victory is going to be a long and bloody war, far greater in scope than almost anyone now imagines. We can’t win our war by playing whack a terrorist in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. As long as the Muslim world generates a demand for terrorist attacks on the U.S. and its interests there will be suppliers no matter how many terrorists we manage to kill.

To win, we have to suppress the demand for terrorism.
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Islam seeks to conquer the world

"The rules of war are flexible; the objective of war remains."

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

The Enemy

By Dick McDonald

The West ignores history and apologizes to a cult that believes their salvation is the extermination of the West and the leaders say it out loud every Friday in the Mosque. When will the West come to its senses? Apparently it will not do so in the Armed Services Committee of the United States Senate.

Senators McIdiot, Graham, Warner and Collins believe we have to be the beacon of righteousness to the world or some future enemy will torture our soldiers. They pass over the fact that Islam seldom bothers with extended torture but goes directly to the beheadings and mutilation those savages prefer. Oh yes McIdiot and company acknowledge that we are fighting barbarians but it is more important to follow rules of etiquette so us darlings won’t be called hypocrites. I always thought that “names will never hurt you” we learned in the sandbox was a valid principal. Apparently it is not with a small contingent of Republicans in the US Senate or with Democrats.

The rest of the world likes their American “whipping boy”. They know we are saps for listening to what they say because they know they would never abide by “name, rank and serial number” if they were faced with a mortal enemy ready to nuke them. No they listen to Hollywood. They listen to Jack Bauer. They just laugh at candy-ass Americans so caught up in their drawers they are falling all over themselves to be kind to those who might call them names. Oh horrors of horrors they called us hypocrites. How could we possibly live with that?

On that fateful day in the soccer stadium when your head is on the block for all to see you lose it, go to your heaven in the comfort of knowing that at least they can’t call you a hypocrite.

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Who Said It?

The following is a quote from a president of the United States:

"If a nation shows that it knows how to act with decency ... then it need fear no interference from the US ... but brutal wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilised society, may finally require intervention by some civilised nation ... the US cannot ignore this duty."

The above is a quote from:
a) The "neocon" George W. Bush
b) Woodrow Wilson
c) Theodore Roosevelt
I f you chose the "Progressive" Theodore Roosevelt go to the head of the class.

John Kerry: Round II?

This post by Tom Maguire at "Just One Minute" is shamelessly stolen and reposted below. It is absolutely priceless. Be sure to follow ALL of the links.

I'd Rather Be Lucky Than Good

Inspired, no doubt, by the timeless wisdom of well-known socialist "Lefty" Gomez, and prompted by John Kerry's promise to engage in coast-to-coast ass-kicking, the BumperStickerist explains why he backed Bush in 2004:

I finally admitted to a liberal friend the obvious truth - I voted for Bush because he's both pure evil *and* the luckiest bastard on the face of the earth. I mean, seriously, look at just a couple key events:

Bush joins the Texas ANG - Kerry joins the Navy Reserves.

Bush completes TANG training for jets, flies jets, volunteers for Vietnam only to be told that the pilot skills he has aren't needed.

Kerry joins the Swift Boats at time they were patrolling off coas - the duty changes to river patrolling, Kerry gets shot at by people intent on killing him and his crew. Kerry leaves by choice after three months.

Advantage: Bush

Bush skates through the last two years of his TANG duty, but does so with such foresight as to bury almost all traces of his duty record leaving only notes from a dental record exam.

Kerry works as an admirals aide for the balance of his active duty stint - but manages to get caught on tape during a meeting where assassination is discussed, travels to Vietnam while on Reserve status to meet with the enemy, has his Silver Star citation ammended twice times, publishes an anti-war book that's later debunked.

Advantage: Bush

Bush: Sat for 6.5 minutes after hearing about the 9/11 attacks in a room with a bunch of kids, a teacher, and a camera crew.

Kerry: Sat for an hour, stunned to the point of inaction, in a room full of adult elected officials with no camera present.

Advantage: Bush

Bush: Able to surround himself with a cadre of people able to engineer election fraud on a massive scale in Democratic-controlled precincts undetected, destroy two huge buildings in the middle of a major US city without any actual, you know, evidence left behind, destroy our basic Constitutional rights in pursuit of his neocon vision of a Unitary Executive and still have the energy to clear brush from his ranch while on vacation.

Kerry: Can't get the balloons to release on cue.

Advantage: Bush

There comes a point where you just marvel at the timing of events in favor of Bush and the way the Democrats clusterfuck their way through life and decide 'fuck it - Bush'

Seriously, if the Left can't defeat the Evil that is Bush, how the hell can they be trusted to defeat actual Evil?

Go, Balloons! And Go, Tall John!

Armed Granny (Illegal)

By John R. Lott Jr.
She looked like the perfect victim. Last Friday, 56-year-old Margaret Johnson was leaving her building in her wheelchair. Except for her small dog, she was alone and didn't see the criminal attack her from behind. Having suffered bruises to her neck and arm, a friend of Johnson's said, "She was scared for her life. She's devastated."

But this attack ended differently than most crimes in New York City. As her attacker grabbed her "violently" and "choked" her, Johnson pulled out a handgun and shot once, hitting the criminal in the elbow. Johnson was fortunate that she was able to defend herself.

The city obviously wasn't there to protect Johnson. A police officer could have handled it, but cops can't be everywhere, and they virtually always arrive after a crime has occurred.

Nor does it appear that the city was doing a particularly good job of keeping the criminal off the street to begin with. Johnson's attacker had been previously arrested nine times, primarily for the violent crime of robbery, and he had served time in prison for selling illegal substances. One can only wonder how many times he was never caught.

Even worse, if Mayor Bloomberg would have enforced New York City's gun-control laws, it's Johnson who would be in jail. Her license only allows her to carry a handgun that is unloaded and in a locked container to and from a firearms range. With an attacker choking her, there is no way she could have unlocked and loaded her gun.

Ironically, just last week Bloomberg went to Washington, D.C., and lashed out at those who failed to stop people who "possess a gun illegally." What would Bloomberg recommend Johnson have done, had she sought to follow the law?

Bloomberg might want to keep in mind Johnson's case in his lawsuits against gun dealers. The suits mention only the harm and none of the possible benefits from people owning guns to protect themselves.

Considering how others benefit from guns goes against every reflex Bloomberg has. Even after a City Council member was killed at City Hall a few years ago, Bloomberg questioned why the murdered councilman, James Davis, would want to carry a gun. Davis, a retired police officer, had a permit to carry a gun, but Bloomberg found it very troubling: "I don't know why people carry guns," the mayor said. "Guns kill people."

Bloomberg's crime-fighting solution was then to ban off-duty and former cops from carrying guns in City Hall. But the criminal was not an officer. Such bans have only one possible outcome: Criminals have less to worry about; in these "gun-free zones," fewer people can act to defend themselves and others.

Coincidentally, last week the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association announced its quixotic plan to push for right-to-carry concealed-handgun laws in the state. Some 40 other states already allow people to carry concealed handguns once they pass a criminal background check and meet age and some training requirements. Some 600,000 people have concealed-handgun permits just in New York's neighboring state, Pennsylvania.

The Brady Campaign, the gun-control advocacy group, last week responded to a call for a right-to-carry law by saying: "Oh yeah, that's going to happen – when hell freezes over."

Too bad. It would be nice if the Margaret Johnsons of New York were able to defend themselves legally.

source

What? Before Bush?

"Fundamentalist [Muslim] leaders are not mistaken in seeing in Western civilization the greatest challenge to [their] way of life," Lewis concludes. "And since the United States is the legitimate heir of European civilization and the recognized and unchallenged leader of the West, the United States has inherited the resulting grievances and become the focus for the pent-up hate and anger."

This anti-Americanism is primarily philosophical. It has flourished not primarily because of American foreign policy, but sometimes even in spite of it. It has persisted even in the face of such actions as U. S. intervention in 1956 to have Israel, Britain, and France withdraw from Egypt, and our many subsequent efforts to compel Israel to cede to Palestinian demands at the negotiating table. America is now the fundamentalists' reflexive target of opportunity even when it has nothing to do with a particular grievance. When, for example, a group of Muslim dissidents seized the Great Mosque in Mecca in November 1979, an angry mob in Pakistan targeted and burned the U. S. embassy.

For many years the anti-American rage of Islamic fundamentalists festered impotently. But with their takeover of Iran, then their defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan, they began to feel empowered once again. To many Muslim revivalists, their centuries-old dream of a World of Islam seems at last within their grasp. And with the aid of oil money and supportive regimes, they now have the means to fight the hated infidels—led by the Great Satan.
For a violent subset of Islamic fundamentalists, this hatred has now become a holy war, a jihad against America itself—but more: against the whole of Western civilization to which America is heir. These zealots are pushing Islamic fundamentalism to the point of pure nihilism—to becoming an envy-eaten, hate-driven excuse for the obliteration of all civilized values.

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Elitist "Progressives"?

By George Will
Thursday, September 14, 2006

Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots, and announce -- yes, announce -- that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by ... liberals.

Before they went on their bender of indignation about Wal-Mart (customers per week: 127 million), liberals had drummed McDonald's (customers per week: 175 million) out of civilized society because it is making us fat, or something. So, what next? Which preferences of ordinary Americans will liberals, in their role as national scolds, next disapprove? Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet?

No. The current issue of The American Prospect, an impeccably progressive magazine, carries a full-page advertisement denouncing something responsible for ``lies, deception, immorality, corruption, and widespread labor, human rights and environmental abuses'' and of having brought ``great hardship and despair to people and communities throughout the world.''

What is this focus of evil in the modern world? North Korea? The Bush administration? Fox News Channel? No, it is Coca-Cola (number of servings to Americans of the company's products each week: 2.5 billion).

When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled ``What's the Matter With Liberals' Nominees?'' No, the book they turned into a best-seller is titled ``What's the Matter With Kansas?'' Notice a pattern here?

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HE Gets It!

Tony Blair on "anti-Americans madness"

Apparently his impending departure from the Prime Ministership is a liberating experience for Tony Blair. About European politicians, he just wrote,

“The strain of, frankly, anti-American feeling in parts of European politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in….The danger is if they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved,” Blair said, spelling out his political vision in a pamphlet published by The Foreign Policy Center think-tank.

This from Reuters, which had to hold its nose,metaphorically, while writing. Being immature and impulsive, the writers just couldn’t control themselves, and the last word is given to one Rosemary Hollis, Reuterized as “a Middle East expert at British think-tank Chatham House.”

“He is not as instrumental as he needs to be, or would like to believe he is,” she said.

Gosh, I love this guy Blair.

Way to go, Tony!

The Foreign Policy Centre may be found at http://fpc.org.uk/

James Lewis 9 14 06

Our "Allies"?

These days it seems to Leonidas that our language is becoming more and more tortured and corrupted by political correctness . A few words that come to mind are: ally and torture.

For a perspective on "torture" check this out.

Hat tip/ No Pasaran

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Has the Fat Lady Sung? (Obstruction of Justice)

The Northern California attorney Raymond Kraft has an interesting take on the end of the "Plamegate" affair excerpted here:

For a year, for two years, for however long Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has known that Dick Armitage was the leaker, and however long he has kept that information secret, concealing it from the Grand Jury and from Congress, both of which had a right to know, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been willfully, knowingly, and deliberately obstructing justice, by concealing evidence of the innocence of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and their aides, in violation of 18 USC Sec. 1500 etc., which prohibits the obstruction of justice. By concealing his knowledge of the true source of Novak's information, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has made himself the obstructer of justice.

And by instructing Dick Armitage to conceal his own identity as the source of Novak's information, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has impaled himself, and Armitage, too, on the spear of conspiracy to obstruct justice, two or more people acting in concert, the independent crime of a conspiracy to commit a crime. A conspiracy of his own making.

This event, the obstruction of justice by the Special Prosecutor, the concealment of evidence that would have instantly resolved the investigation and exonerated the White House, whether to assure his own employment, or enhance his own prominence, to feed his own ego, or for the politically partisan purpose of going deep sea fishing to see if he could discover any evidence of any wrongdoing anywhere among the President's staff, despite the absence of reasonable suspicion, or probable cause, and despite actual knowledge of the source of Novak's information, can only be described as corruption - the corruption of the office of the Special Prosecutor, the corruption of Patrick Fitzgerald who willfully concealed evidence in order to obstruct the exoneration of President Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, in order to serve the petulance of Joe Wilson, in order to obstruct justice.
Fitzgerald's obstruction of justice has given America's Democrats and other Liberals a year, two years, in which to hammer and flail away at President Bush for allegedly violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in a petty retaliatory tiff against Joe Wilson, all based on the uncorroborated allegations of Joe Wilson which are instantly disproven by the truth that Fitzgerald concealed.

HatTip: John Ray

Fascist Update (California)

In using the term "Liberal" Dr. Wheeler is not using it the classical sense but the current definition which is used to describe "leftists" and "collectivists".

WHY LIBERALS ARE FASCISTS
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Thursday, 31 August 2006

Doesn't it seem odd that the kids who started the 60s anti-establishment protest riots on college campuses with the Free Speech Movement (Berkeley, 1964) are the college professors or politicians today who most vehemently suppress free speech among their students or constituents in the name of political correctness?

How can this be? How can worshipping at the shrines of Diversity, Tolerance, and Multiculturalism result in trials and expulsions for students, or jail for citizens, who express ideas with which the worshippers are not in agreement?

The answer is the intimate connection between Subjectivism and Fascism.

The core metaphysical assertion of liberals is that there are no absolute truths, factually or morally. What's true for you may not be true for me, it's all a matter of perspective, who are you to say what is right or wrong, true or false.

Truth is a matter of subjective opinion, it is relative to the values of different people. This belief, which lies at the very center of the liberal view of the world, is known as Subjectivism or Relativism.

It's opposite, Objectivism, the assertion that there are in fact absolute truths, both moral and factual about the nature of reality regardless of anyone's opinion or desires, horrifies liberals. They think such an assertion leads straight to tyranny and fascism.

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), the founder of Fascism as a political movement (after the Latin fasces, the bundle of rods used by Rome to symbolize strength through unity) vehemently disagreed.

In his 1921 essay Diuturna (The Lasting, that which endures), Mussolini made it clear that moral relativism was his rationale for Fascism:

"If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, we Fascists conclude that we have the right to create our own ideology and to enforce it with all the energy of which we are capable."

Liberals follow Mussolini's conclusion to the letter. Preaching tolerance, they have no tolerance for anyone's opinions but their own. Anyone they disagree with they call 'racist' or 'sexist' or 'homophobic' or some other denigration.

Liberal intolerance, of course, goes way beyond mere disagreement and name-calling. They want to criminalize the beliefs and actions of those with whom they disagree.

They succeeded this week in California. On Tuesday (August 29), Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law (SB 1441 sponsored by a lesbian actress turned state senator, Sheila Kuehl) specifically requiring "any program or activity that...receives any financial assistance from the state" to support transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality or lose state funding.

The Democrat-run California Legislature is passing an entire raft of such fascist laws. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez made it bluntly clear: "Our purpose is to outlaw traditional perspectives on marriage and family in the state school system."

He and his fellow Democrats have the Orwellian nerve to call their legislative fascism "tolerance education."

Liberal "tolerance" is forcing people at the point of a gun to believe and act as liberals demand. You don't get more fascist than that.

California's Attorney General, Bill Lockyer, is, however, trying. He is actually trying to criminalize disagreement on "global warming."

In his lawsuit against such prominent scientists as MIT Professor of Meteorology Richard Lindzen and Harvard astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas, Lockyer accuses them of being "climate skeptics," who are playing "a major role in spreading disinformation about global warming."

Until recently, Lockyer was positioning himself to run for California governor, challenging Schwarzenegger. They could have had a debate as to which one is more fascist than the other. (No one should be shocked by Schwarzenegger, by the way. He married a Kennedy!)

The only way to combat liberal lunacy like that on exhibit in California is to attack it at its source: liberal subjectivism leading directly to fascism.

It will do no good for liberals to bleat about religious absolutists, be they Christian or Moslem, who believe they have a right to force people into behaving as they want because that's what the Bible or the Koran says.

That's a red herring. Don't let liberals switch the issue. The issue here is the fundamental contradiction in their world-view, not anyone else's. Liberals cannot argue for relativism in morality and claim there are no moral truths, then claim their moral values magically have more validity than anyone else's.

When you argue there are no objective moral truths, the only way to settle a moral disagreement is at the point of a gun. Mussolini understood this, and he had the intellectual honesty to admit it.

Liberals understand it too, but they don't want to admit it, least of all to themselves. It still makes them fascists, nonetheless.

Demonstrating how and why liberals are fascists is their Achilles' Heel. Name-calling is a liberal specialty, and they are fond of calling their opponents "fascists." But using reason and logic to expose how they are demonstrably in fact fascists can be effective.

Combat liberalism by publicly exposing it as fascism. California would be a good place to start.

--30--

NOTE TO OTHERS: PLEASE FORWARD THIS ARTICLE TO YOUR EMAIL LISTS--ALSO, BLOGGERS FEEL FREE TO REPRODUCE THIS ARTICLE
source

HT/ Jon Ray Phd

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

The Dhimmicrat Way

By Matt May

It seems former president Bill Clinton is more than a little upset about the impending airing of a movie about the build-up to the September 11 attacks. The king of free speech is demanding that ABC pull the drama from the air so that the American public will not be allowed to see it and decide for themselves.

This is the Democrat way. Anything that might put a question in the mind of the people as to whether the Clinton administration was asleep at the switch for eight years is to be banished and destroyed. Dissent is fine - if you happen to be criticizing Republicans. Otherwise, forget it. This strategy runs along the same line as the left's true definition of "diversity": People of different races, creeds and religions all saying the same thing.

President Clinton's response to this drama is quite telling, no? Think about it: Did President Bush demand that the pap Michael Moore peddles be stricken from the air or the moviehouse?

UPDATE: Check out Gary Harmon on this same subject - a great piece with nothing but the facts.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Central American Travelogue

The following is an account of an interesting adventure experienced by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ and his wife/first officer early in their cruising experience after his early retirement.

On 19 January 1980 at 10:00 hrs. after a week’s stay in the southernmost Mexican Pacific port of Puerto Madero our auxiliary sloop Leonidas was provisioned and fueled for the voyage to Punta Arenas, Costa Rica. We had obtained a despacho omitting stops in Guatemala and El Salvador due to ongoing political upheavals as well as Nicaragua which had during the previous 6 months experienced the installation of a Sandinista communist government after the revolution overthrowing Somoza. The anchor was weighed and mainsail set as Leonidas exited the harbor and headed east southeast in light winds for the expected 3+ day passage.

By sunset the wind was still light from the southeast and we continued motor sailing through the night with the lights of the coastal towns of Guatemala visible off the port rail. By sunrise on the 20th we were approaching the coast of El Salvador and the wind increased to 12 kts from the south enabling us to set the genoa headsail and kill the engine. During the day of 21 January the wind veered more to the southeast and increased to 15 kts forcing a course change closer inshore bringing us off the entrance to the Bay of Fonseca during the early evening. With the wind increasing to over 18 kts and from the southeast on the nose forcing us closer inshore we were 12 miles off the northwestern coast of Nicaragua by sunrise on 22 January.

The wind increased to 25 kts on the nose and headway was very slow. I checked the charts and decided to seek shelter in a shallow bight indicated as Puerto Somoza. We entered the cove and anchored in 15 ft of water about 1/4 mile from the beach at about 09:30 hrs. Ashore was a large construction project which we later learned was a power plant recently completed by Italians.There vas a small village on the beach but no human activity was visible.

I transferred 25 gallons of fuel from the jerry cans on deck to the fuel tank and we ate a light meal. By 14:00 hrs the wind had subsided and we decided to continue on as we had a sense of unease at the lack of activity ashore. We weighed anchor and set the mainsail as while motoring out of the cove. Just before 14:30 hrs we noted a small tug boat overhauling us from astern and as it approached we could see soldiers on deck waving machine guns and signaling for us to stop which we did. The tug came alongside and 2 soldiers jumped aboard Leonidas and ordered us to return to the cove we had exited. We followed the tug up an entrance channel and were ordered to tie up to a dock whereupon the boat was thoroughly searched. We were then conducted ashore to a barracks where the officer in charge interrogated us for several hours.

We were assigned “accommodations” in the barracks and advised we were to be transported to Managua the following morning for further questioning. At around 06:30 hrs the following morning we were placed in a van and began the 2.5 hr drive to the capital of Managua. The “Comandancia” on the outskirts of the city consisted of what had been the residence/office of a medical doctor who had probably been arrested.

The “Comandante “ examined our passports, ships papers and despacho and advised us that we were in Nicaragua “illegally”. I explained the inclement weather and the fact that we had not landed in the country and he was satisfied that we were not “spies for Somoza”. We were then dismissed and “free to go”. There was no transport available in Managua and ALL of the businesses were closed. The Comandante therefore assigned a soldier (about 17 yrs. of age) to drive us back to “Puerto Sandino” in a commandeered Toyoya Land Cruiser with less than 1/2 tank of gas.

The young soldier apparently believed us to be gringo VIPs and wanted to impress his associates with his “important” assignment. He therefore proceeded to take us on a circuitous route via a stop at what he stated was a former “finca” (country estate) of the exiled dictator Somoza which had been converted to a “school”. As we arrived at the “school” he introduced us to two males described as “teachers” who offered us cigarettes which we refused. I noted the strange packs of cigarettes and asked the “teachers” where they were from. They stated that they were Cuban “volunteers” sent to teach at the school. I asked what had happened to the former Nica teachers and they smiled and stated “they left because of bad climate”.

We resumed the drive to Puerto Sandino but the driver halted about 8 km short and pointed to the gas gauge. I argued with him that such an important facility as Puerto Sandino would surely have gas for his return drive and he continued on. We were allowed to board Leonidas and prepare to exit the harbor with a pilot. As I cast off the dock lines I could hear the local comandante shouting at the young soldier that there was no gas for his return to Managua.

We exited the channel and the pilot was taken off by the tug boat. We sailed overnight and arrived with considerable relief at Bahia Elena, Costa Rica at 10:30 hrs. the following morning. We had believed that 22 January 1980 was to be the last day of our lives.

Wrong War?

The following is an excerpt from an August 31 article in ChronWatch By Raymond Kraft:

"Terror" is merely a tactic, and "terrorism" a strategic philosophy - it is not the driving force. It is the tool, not the carpenter. It is the hammer, not the man who swings the hammer. We cannot win a war against the hammer without winning a war against the man who swings the hammer. But to do this, we must know him, we must recognize him, we must see him for who and what he is, we must name him, and then we must make war against him, Islamic Nazism, and not merely against the hammer, the tool, the acts of terror, the acts of the man who swings the hammer. To win, you must know your enemy for what he is, not for what we wish him to be. And no euphemism of "Islamo-Fascism" can make the Islamic Resistance Movement, the Wahhabist Jihad, anything but the resurgence and re-emergence of Nazism ideologically married to puritanical Islam. Islamic Nazism.

We do not quite want to see what confronts us, not even in the spotlight of Muhammed's words:

"And when the sacred months are passed, kill those who join other gods with Allah wherever ye shall find them; and seize them, besiege them, and lay in wait for them with every kind of ambush; but if they convert and observe prayer, and pay the obligatory alms, then let them go their way, for Allah is Gracious, Merciful."
- Koran 9:5

"Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures have been given as believe not in Allah, or in the last day, and who forbid not that which Allah and his Apostles have forbidden, and who profess not the profession of the truth (Islam), until they pay tribute out of hand, and they be humbled. The Jews say, Ezra is a son of God; and the Christians say, The Messiah is a son of God. Such are the sayings in their mouths! They resemble the saying of the Infidels of old! Allah do battle with them! How are they misguided!"
- Koran 9:29

more
Kraft continues:

I am getting some liberal response to my [above excerpted] article at ChronWatch about Islamic Nazism - and some of these people give drivel a bad name. The intellectual vacuity is truly amazing. One of the defining attributes of the Liberal mind, it seems to me, [in addition to engaging in ad hominem arguments] is the inability to differentiate between one's personal, internal (emotional) state, or reality, and external, impersonal, objective reality - the Liberal mind merges the two and attributes its "internal reality" to external things. It is unable to distinguish between "how things are" and "how I feel about things."

Strong is Wrong?

Dave Runyan 9 04 06

How did Israel go from being the plucky underdog kid that most in the US and Europe admired, to a country so widely (if inaccurately) reviled as an oppressor and the source of all that is wrong in the Middle East?

The answer I think is the belief system at the heart of “leftism”. The core of this belief system is that people (and countries) are innately evil, and if given the opportunity they will oppress anyone weaker than they.

This explains the infatuation of leftists with both the weak (e.g. Arabs), and internationalism (e.g. the UN) as a means of controlling and weakening the power of the strong (e.g. the US, UK, Microsoft…).

So by surviving the assaults of its neighbors for 50 years, and (horrors) prospering far beyond any of them while doing so, Israel has become in the Middle East what the US has become in the world at large… a blazing beacon refuting the core leftist value that to be strong is to be evil, simply by virtue of having achieved strength.

In the leftist mind, strength can never be achieved honorably: strength can only come from having oppressed the weak, who are by definition noble, even if they be bloodthirsty.

So, the next time you see the US pilloried about human rights by some murdering autocrat who chairs a UN “rights” committee, or hear a US politician of the Democratic persuasion screech about “fascism” in the US and the government “chilling” free speech, or hear the only democracy in the Middle East (except for Iraq) accused of aggression for defending itself against rocket attacks; and you wonder just what the hell is going on… just remember the simple credo of the liberal left: “Strong is Wrong”.

For the left it trumps all logic, as it must, least their whole belief system be shown for what it truly is – a gaily colored piñata that contains no sweets, only a poisonous misanthropy.

ht/ American Thinker

Game's Over Man!! Plame that is

This just in from from the Washington Post

"It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent [sic] Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband. [Fancy that]

It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. The partisan clamor [in which thePost engaged] that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago. [Everyone, including the prosecutor knew it!]

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people [and media pirhanas such as the Post] took him seriously.

I wonder how the civil suit filed against the White House by Wilson and Plame is going. Just curious. If Bush does not pardon Libby in spite of the uproar that will be raised by the Dimmocrats, he is more of a wimp than I already believe him to be. Remember all those Clinton pardons of crooks during the last days of his administration?

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ