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It seems every now and again this idea for (what seems to be) a brilliant post on Climategate flashes across my mind and then fades before I have a chance to write it down or otherwise record it.
When I try to recall those thoughts or call them up by reading other thoughtful posts on this scandal of considerable consequence (and apparent media ignorance), all that comes up are two notions, both which may perhaps be a brilliant insights, but the first is definitely not my own. It is something I have read on a number of conservative blogs and heard from other thoughtful conservative individuals–and may even have read in an intelligent conservative column or two (or three).
Basically, it boils down to this: they’ve been doctoring the data on global warming because they need it to be so. First, if private industry has created this problem, then it becomes to easier for them to demand increased government control over our society, giving greater power to a certain “anointed” class (which must needs include them). And second, it makes it easier to be critical of our species, particularly that part of our species which resides in the industrialized West or otherwise contributes to the civilization of the West.
If I do have anything original to offer, it might be about that second point, though I’m pretty sure I’m not the first to raise it.
There is a fascinating irony to the attitude under consideration in that second point. The very notion of self-criticism is a a key aspect of Western civilization. And yet, some have taken it to an extreme. It’s not just some problems that can be attributed to our society, our culture, our civilization, our species, but every major problem must needs be one of human design. Some have taken a key aspect of Western civilization to indict that very civilization (and, in other fields of endeavor, to blame the West while excusing the rest even when their crimes are far worse). (more…)
Perhaps I have been particularly fascinated by Kevin Jennings’ contention that, as a boy, he learned about the American ideal of masculinity from his adolescent older brother because I chancedupon it (if chance it was) the same week I’ve been studying the adolescent rage of various mythological heroes as part of my dissertation research. Each of those heroes—and not just the Greeks—must learn to tame his rage, to control his passions, before accomplishing the truly great deeds of his life.
Indeed, Herakles had to complete his celebrated twelve labors, in large part, because of his murderous rage. The murder was not seen as the apotheosis of his heroism, but as a hindrance to it. He needed purify himself of his wicked deeds.
It is striking that Jennings would suggest an adolescent boy could pass on the cultural ideal of masculinity. In fact, adolescent boys are those most in need of an education in mature masculinity. Anyone who has studied myth or rudimentary male adolescent psychology understands the seemingly untamable energy of boys on the cusp of adulthood.
And it is the taming of the energy which signals their our advancement into adulthood.
American males are not brought up to kill our fellows in order to prove our masculinity, but to stand up for ourselves in the face of obloquy and adversity, replying to our attackers in just measure and to our misfortunes with calm forbearance.
Had we greater access to myth, we might better be able to articulate this masculine ideal.
If he subscribes to the politically correct nostrums that define much of gay discourse today, then his advocacy would indeed be radical. And now a blogger has unearthed a 1998 essay Jennings wrote that strongly suggests he does indeed subscribe to such nostrums, having such a twisted idea of the Western idea of masculinity that he must have stopped reading the Iliad at line 228 of its first book (if he ever got to the book at all). Or never studied why Herakles had to undertake his celebrated twelve labors.
We need to own up to the fact that our culture teaches boys that being “a man” is the most important thing in life, even if you have to kill someone to prove it. Killing someone who calls you a faggot is not aberrant behavior but merely the most extreme expression of a belief that is beaten (sometimes literally) into boys at an early age in this country: Be a man—don’t be a faggot.
No, Kevin, it’s not. When you think it’s not “aberrant behavior” to kill someone who calls you names, you miss the whole point of Western masculinity. The lesson which the Greek heroes needed learn (many of whom through the actions and words of the goddess Athena) is not to react with disproportionate force, but to react in just measure. At the outset the Iliad, Achilles, filled with youthful braggadocio (likely similar to that of Jennings’s brother) draws his sword to strike Agamemnon dead in outrage at the disrespect the Mycenaen King showed him. But, the owl-eyed goddess sweeps down from the heavens in order to restrain him.
To become a man and realize his destiny, a hero must learn to restrain his battle fury, channeling it into just causes. And that is the essence of Western masculinity. A frenzied reaction (like that of Achilles before Athena’s intervention is the antithesis of the Western ideal.) (more…)
Still, however, all too many remain fixated not just on the color of our skin, but on any identifying characteristic which separates us from the “norm.” And perhaps because that characteristic put us in a disfavored class, we reply by becoming proud of our difference.
With gay people, the pride replaces the shame previous generations thoughts about our difference. Perhaps, had I come of age a decade or so before I did, I might feel proud to be gay, but I don’t. I’m not ashamed of it. It’s just part of who I am. One characteristic among many.
How true, Dan. This is another example of how left-wing identity politics is turning America into a “Balkanized Iraq-like” nation day-by-day. We must stem the tide and all become AMERICANS again.
Given the parallels between the various world and economic crises in the late 1970s and today as well as the world views of the Democratic Presidents then and now, some are wondering if it’s 1979 all over again. Back then, we saw unrest in Iran, with mass demonstrations in the streets. Government spending was skyrocketing with inflation looming. Gas prices were on the uptick, with the President urging us to drive smaller, more fuel efficient cars. Chrysler, tin cup in hand, came to Washington begging for a federal bailout.
The fantasy that “moderates” within the mullah regime can be coaxed into a “grand bargain” has taken in better men than Barack Obama, but Obama doesn’t even have the excuse of not being aware of that prior history. The level of self-loathing an American has to possess to believe that the Khomeinists are a brutal, terror-supporting regime entirely because the US hasn’t been nice enough to them is pretty staggering.
Khoemeini and his heirs were and are brutal fanatics. Period, dot. They have subjugated and terrorized their own people and done their level best to kill ours for thirty years because that’s what they are and that’s what they do. The devil didn’t make them do it. There’s nothing you or I or Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush or Barack Obama ever could have said that would have changed them
Read the whole thing where Will Collier, its author, puts forward Ronald Reagan (rather than his predecessor) as an example of how an American President should react to power-hungry regimes which oppress their people. And he’s not the only one.
So, I’m wondering, given the similarities between Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter if the one Democrat shares the other’s naiveté about the ways of the world?
I think there’s something more than naiveté at play here. I think we’re seeing instead the influence of leftist academic theories, particularly those of Edward Said, and the President’s left-wing associations before he leapt onto the national stage.
Jimmy Carter was just plain naive and blind to the realities of the world. I fear that Barack Obama really believes the hooey peddled on so many university campuses that repression abroad is just a natural reaction to American “aggression/imperialism.”
By that logic, increasing gay activism since Stonewall has fueled anti-gay bigotry and is thus responsible for hate crimes against homosexuals.
It’s time that President Obama woke up and recognize the brutal reality of some of our nation’s adversaries.
As Bruce pointed out earlier today, gay groups have been astonishgly silent as millions of citizens rise up against electoral fraud in quite possibly the most oppressively anti-gay regime in the world. And this electoral fraud serves to keep in power Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man, whom gay leftie blogger Michael Petrelis reports, ” used “Homosexuals to Undercut Rivals.”
I guess that’s only bad when Karl Rove does it.
Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Joe Solmonese last week condemned the shooting at the Holocaust Museum, yet has nothing to say about the protests in Iran. And I could find no references to the events in Iran on the web-pages of the other gay groups.
At a time when thousands and thousands of brave Iranian democracy-fighters are justifiably upset with their president stealing an election from them and the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, and they’re taking to the streets to visibily and loudly demand change, I am appalled at how the gay bloggers have praised a letter from HRC. Why accept just a crumb from the $41 million organization?
Well, at least Solomonese wrote a letter to the President. He didn’t even issue a statement in solidarity with the Iranian people protesting their anti-gay regime. It seems it’s only when Republicans do something which is (or could remotely be perceived as) adverse to the interests of gay people does it raise the hackles of the leadership of the various gay organizations, particularly HRC. (more…)
Aside from Andrew Sullivan and Michael Petrelis, The Gays(tm) have been stunningly silent on the Iranian election. Almost as silent and stand-offish as President Obama has been.
While I haven’t blogged about it (admittedly), I have been Twittering my ass off throughout the weekend on the subject! After all, shouldn’t gays be MORE invested in the outcome of Iran’s future than almost anyone? They hang gays there after all.
You’d think liberals could put at least half the anger they aim at Prop 8 supporters towards someone who has executed gay people.
Amen. It is the big inconvenient truth for The Gays(tm). Life in America for us is ashamedly better than nearly every other country on earth. But there always has to be something for The Gays(tm) to attack America and Christians about so they can raise money to keep themselves going.
SPECIAL UPDATE from Dan: I will offer a $25 contribution to the first non-Republican gay organization which criticizes the President for this omission. If none do so by Monday morning, I will give that to GOProud.
I wish I could say that I picked up on this myself, but I must give full credit to New Zealand blogger Darren who writes at The Fairfacts Media Show and the No Minister blog and who emailed me earlier today.
Gays living under strict Islamic law (whether in a nation or a region) are subject to death. Women(as a group) actually have better lives in the Muslim faith than do gays and lesbians. Although gay men seem to be particular targets of the horrific state/mosque-sanctioned atrocities.
It is outrageous for President Obama to ignore this issue while he addressed so many others today. He let a lot of people down today by taking a walk on this serious human rights threat to gays in many Muslim countries and communities.
“President Obama’s silence today on the treatment of gays and lesbians in Muslim countries is shameful. The penalty for simply being gay in Muslim countries like Iran is death. Even in Egypt, the country where President Obama spoke today, gays have been subject to arrest and imprisonment.
It is intolerable for President Obama to turn a blind eye to the type of human rights abuses occurring at the hands of Islamic extremists throughout the world. If the United States is to maintain its position of moral leadership in the world, then this administration must make it clear that basic human rights for all should be respected.”
I am really beginning to wonder why the American gay and lesbian activists were so hot for Obama to begin with.
In the wake of a series of murders of gay Iraqis in the stronghold of radical cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud, a registered 527 for gay conservatives and their allies, issued the following statement.
“Instead of unilaterally surrendering the global war on terror, now is the time for the Obama administration to recommit to fighting global extremism. It is intolerable for the U.S. government to turn a blind eye to the type of human rights abuses occurring at the hands of Islamic extremists in Iraq and indeed throughout the Middle East. If the United States is to maintain its position of moral leadership in the world, then this administration must make it clear that basic human rights for all should be respected.
It is shameful that so many on the left have made excuses for the human rights abuses carried out by tyrannical extremist regimes from Cuba to Venezuela to Iran. It is time for the blame America first crowd to recognize the real threats to peace and freedom that exist across the globe.”
Where is the Human Rights Campaign on Islamic extremists & gays? And the NGLTF? Or even Log Cabin (Republicans) ? We all know the answer: *crickets chirping*
Here at GayPatriot and GOProud — we will not ignore the brutal gay purges being systematically carried out by Islamists around the globe.
Someone please help me answer this:Â If Obama cannot stand up to Somali pirates who capture a US vessel and kidnap its captain… how confident am I that he will protect the USA from much more serious enemies who have already declared war on America and Western values and who want to murder Americans by the thousands?
Just two days ago, I blogged how the Obama Administration, in striving to “fit in” to the planning sesssion for the United Nations Durban II conference on racism, preferred “being liked” to standing up against the conference’s labeling Israel as the primary source of racism in the world.
White House aides told Jewish leaders on a conference call today that the United States will boycott the United Nations’ World Conference on Racism over hostility to Israel in draft documents prepared for the April conference.
The aides, including an advisor to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, Jennifer Simon, and longtime Obama advisor Samantha Power, said the administration will not participate in further negotiations on the current text or participate in a conference based on the text, sources on the call said.
(Emphasis added. Via The Weekly Standard.)Â Kudos to the Administration for acknolwedging the hostility to Israel expressed in these documents as the reason for their withdrawal.
Ed Morrissey believes Stephen Harper stands to benefit the most; the Canadian Prime Minister “took a lot of heat” for refusing to participate at the outset. He knew that it would be a repeat of the Israel-bashing which defined the initial conference eight years ago:
The conference reprises the 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa that devolved into an anti-Jewish free-for-all. Canada and Israel have opted not to attend the conference, and some U.S. Jewish groups had been pressing the United States to do the same.
Preparations for a draft document so far have seen Iran leading a coterie of nations blocking inclusion of anything that might guarantee Jewish protections — including mention of the Holocaust — while inserting draconian language guarding Islam against “insult.â€
I’m delighted to see the United States joining Canada and Israel in boycotting a conference where a rogue nation like Iran would have so much influence. It’s nice to be able to praise the president and his team on a job well done.
The Weathermen were not a 1960s group.
The Weathermen formed in 1969, declared war on “AmeriKKKa” (yes, that is where the popular spelling you hear in the rants of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and on left-wing political blogs comes from) in 1970, and carried out a string of attacks that finally ended with the arrests of the final remaining Weathermen, now called the May 19 Communist Movement, in 1985. One remaining Weatherman, Elizabeth Duke, is still a fugitive from the FBI and is considered armed and dangerous.
Calling the Weathermen a 60s terrorist group, when it did almost all of its bombing in the 1970s and 1980s, is as intellectually honest as calling Duran Duran a 50s rock and roll band because Simon Le Bon was born in 1958.
Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn are domestic terrorists.
They not an “anti-war activists” nor “radicals.” Activists and radicals organize protests and sit-ins and harass elected officials.
A person that uses a bomb instead of a ballot is a terrorist. A person that leads a group of individuals that likes to use bombs instead of ballets is a terrorist leader. As this particular group of terrorists waged war against their own country, they are called domestic terrorists.
Contrary to a meme being pushed by interested parties, the Weather Underground killed innocent people.
Brian V. McDonnell an officer with the San Francisco Police, was ripped apart by shrapnel Feb 16, 1970. He succumbed to his injuries two days later. Officer Robert Fogarty was permanently injured in the same blast. FBI mole Larry Grathwohl says Bill Ayers built the bomb, and that Bernadine Dohrn placed it on the station window ledge. Nyack, NY Police Officer Waverly Brown and Sergeant Ed O’Grady, along with Brinks guard Peter Paige, were killed in an armored car robbery that was a joint operation between the Weather Underground and elements of the Black Liberation Army in 1981.
In addition to their successful homicide bombings, the Weather Underground failed in several attempts at mass murder.
On March 6, 1970, a pipe-bomb being constructed in a Greenwich Village townhouse detonated, killing three Weathermen and causing two others to flee. Recovered amid the rumble were four 12″ dynamite-filled pipe-bombs and several fused eight-stick bundles of dynamite that had been destined for a non-commissioned officers dance that night at Fort Dix, NJ, targeting American soldiers and their civilian dates. The attack would likely have been the worst terrorist attack on American soil prior to Timothy McVeigh’s attack in Oklahoma City.
Lesser known mass murder attempts of the Weathermen that same year included the attempted bombing of the Detroit Police Officers’ Association, which Ayers wanted to occur when the building was fully occupied. An FBI mole within the Weathermen, Larry Grathwohl tipped police. A 13-stick bundle of dynamite was recovered and defused. A separate bombing targeting Detroit police foiled by Grathwohl involved 2 bombs, using 44 sticks of dynamite.
In 1984, Weathermen Susan Rosenberg and Linda Evans were arrested while transporting 740 pounds of explosives and a cache of almost two dozen weapons, including a submachine gun.
Barack Obama and Bill Ayers do not cross paths casually, but have a lucrative multi-decade relationship.
Barack Obama and Bill Ayers met no later than 1987, where the worked together in the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools. There is some speculation that Ayers and Obama may have met even earlier in New York, perhaps as far back as 1984, but that connection hasn’t been firmly established.
Ayers was instrumental in forming the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and arranged for Obama to be chairman of the Board of Directors over more qualified Board members. Obama returned the favor by funneling more than a million dollars in grants to Ayers’ Small School Workshop. Obama and Ayers served together for years on the Board of Directors of the Woods Fund. Obama was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Joyce Foundation, which may have influenced several grants made to Ayers.
Barack Obama “didnt know the history” of Bill Ayers’ and Bernadine Dohrn’s terrorist past when he kicked off his political career in their home in 1995.
Barack Obama has known Bill Ayers at least since 1987, and perhaps as far back as 1983-84. Bernardine Dohrn, once publicly labeled “the most dangerous woman in America” by none other than J. Edgar Hoover, was also well known as the inspiration for the 1988 movie Running on Empty. Subtle terrorists they were not.
Both Ayers and Dohrn were very well known throughout Chicago for their role in the “Days of Rage” riots and their terrorist leadership, and were minor celebrities among the radical leftist community Ayers, Dohrn, and Obama shared in Hyde Park.
There, a group of fifty prominent Jewish and Christian leaders, and public policy groups will protest a dinner meeting between Iranian president Ahmadinejad, anti-American U.N. officials and American religious leaders.
Yeah, you read that right, American religious leaders, including representatives of The American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, Quaker UN Office, Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches-UN Liaison Office will be breaking bread with a man who murders his own people.
He executes gay people too. I wonder if national gay organizations will question these groups for dining with the tyrant. I’d bet good money they’d be demanding apologies if these groups honored James Dobson in a similar manner. Â I could find nothing on the web-sites of the Human Rights Campaign or the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF). Â
Log Cabin Republicans, however, are co-sponsoring this protest. Â At least one national gay group is standing up to the most anti-gay regime on the planet.
Not just that U.N. officials will also be there, honoring a man who threatens the destruction of U.N. member state, something which violates the organization’s charter:
Top U.N. officials are scrambling to figure out how to stop the president of the General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, from dining with and honoring Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has violated an assembly resolution against denying the Holocaust and broken one of the cardinal rules of the U.N. Charter by calling for the elimination of a member state, Israel.
If you think it’s wrong to honor a tyrannical world leader and question the naivete of these religious leaders and are in the New York City area, make sure to join this protest today!
Wow. Not only does our big-screen HDTV (sure to be outlawed by the Obama Regime) show the awesome color and detail of the Bejing Olympics — it also clearly highlights the collaborative language being used constantly NBC commentators toward the Communist Chinese regime.
The most jarring moment for NBC? When the athletes from USA and Iraq got nearly as much applause as China’s team. Wait! I thought the world hated us?  Matt Lauer stuttered at the rousing USA welcome Friday night — obviously not knowing what to say.
Still, the praising of today’s China by NBC since Friday night is becoming embarrassing. They are openly rooting for Chinese athletes against all others — including our USA Olympians.
Quite disgusting, but more and more typical and expected for the Peacock Channel.
In a corner of Istanbul today, the man who might be described as Turkey’s gay poster boy will be buried — a victim, his friends believe, of the country’s deepening friction between an increasingly liberal society and its entrenched conservative traditions.
Ahmet Yildiz, 26, a physics student who represented his country at an international gay gathering in San Francisco last year, was shot leaving a cafe near the Bosphorus strait this week. Fatally wounded, the student tried to flee the attackers in his car, but lost control, crashed at the side of the road and died shortly afterwards in hospital. His friends believe Mr Yildiz was the victim of the country’s first gay honour killing.
Please read the whole story. It is, for the most part, well-written and documents a horrific problem throughout the world.
I would make two simple observations, however. Â
First, I don’t recall ever hearing about Evangelical Christians “honor killing” their gay relatives. My point: This item from Turkey is an example of a true homophobic societal problem. Further, most gay bashings that are reported in the USA take place at significantly higher rates in urban locations — Blue States, if you will, that are allegedly more “tolerant”. Â
The gay murder in Turkey should provide you with some perspective in the world of gay tolerance; since all we are ever being told by our Gay Leaders is how bad Reagan Bush Bush McCain will be for American gays. Get those Montana Gay Concentration Camps ready, folks!  They’ve been buildin’ them since 1980!!!  They HAVE to be done by now!
*sigh*
My other observation is that if you missed just one word in the last paragraph of the Independent’s story — it might have slipped your mind that the “entrenched conservative traditions” mentioned in the first paragraph are Islamic sharia law traditions.  I guess those “pesky immigrant kids” who riot in France are infiltrating Turkey now?
In the Liberal World of Moral Relativism — right and wrong have no meaning nor purpose. Unless it is your blood on the sidewalk.
We’re back from Al Gore’s big global warming speech, and boy did we have a great time! We had a dedicated band of taxpayer advocates out in force, pointing out the high economic cost of global warming alarmism – starting with $8 a gallon gasoline.
Of course, we saw plenty of hypocrisy — especially the fact that Gore didn’t ride his bike or take public transporation to the event. He didn’t even take his Prius! Instead, he brought a fleet of two Lincoln Town Cars and a Chevy Suburban SUV! Even worse, the driver of the Town Car that eventually whisked away Gore’s wife and daughter left the engine idling and the AC cranking for 20 minutes before they finally left!
Hey, if you think the car-idling is the best part of the video — WRONG!  The AFP folks peacefully confront Gore supporters and his limo driver and — well, you HAVE to watch it! I LOVE the woman who thinks a taxi cab is “public transportation”! ROFLMAO!!!
Some bloggers opposed to Barack Obama say they suspect Obama’s supporters — with the assistance of Google — may have tried to censor them when the Internet giant froze their Web sites for five days last month.
Seven blogs run by Democrats who oppose Obama’s nomination for the presidency were incorrectly flagged as spam sites by Blogger, the hosting service Google has owned since 2003. Google says it was an automated response from a spam filter.
But the bloggers believe that Web surfers who support Obama took advantage of a loophole in Blogger’s system that allows readers to report spam blogs, the artificial Web sites that abound on the Internet and are used to promote other sites.
“It appears that [Blogger's] policy can be manipulated by people determined to shut down the free exchange of ideas,” said Carissa Snedeker, whose blog, BlueLyon, was among those that were frozen.
“It’s unusual — I’ve never heard of similar blogs of the same nature being shut down like that,” said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of the tech site SearchEngineLand.com.
<….>
“The conclusion that many of us came to was that we were specifically targeted by some over-enthusiastic Obama supporters,” Snedeker said.
The bloggers believe it’s part of a larger campaign to evict them from left-wing sites like the Huffington Post and DailyKos.
And can someone remind me again…. what side of the political spectrum will you find the roots of fascism? Let me help you out — read this book: Liberal Fascism.
“I must announce that the Zionist regime (Israel), with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene,” he said.
“Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started.”
Since taking the presidency in August 2005, Ahmadinejad has repeatedly provoked international outrage by predicting Israel is doomed to disappear.
“I tell you that with the unity and awareness of all the Islamic countries all the satanic powers will soon be destroyed,” he said to a group of foreign visitors ahead of the 19th anniversary of the death of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
What exactly would a President Obama talk to this guy about?? Oh, its okay. No need to worry….. Let’s just get the child-raping, money-stealing, dictator-propping, resolution ignoring, Isreal-hating  United Nations on the case!
As you may recall, just about one year ago, we awarded Dan Rather the first James Earl Carter Bitter Old Man Award, an honor bestowed on those “men over 70 who, in their dotage, by the very bitterness of their manner, follow in the footsteps of the nation’s worst president.”
In several statements in the past few days, Carter has demonstrated the very bitterness which defines the award. Having long since forgotten the tradition of U.S. presidents never criticizing their successors while abroad, this unhappy octogenarian faulted the incumbent administration for drafting a Middle East policy which has become “one of the greatest human rights crimes on Earth” as he suggests the current president is a “war criminal.” And even after being rejected overwhelmingly by the American people, he has tried to engage in diplomacy on behalf of the United States.
And we haven’t even gotten to his criticism of the Administration’s Iraq policy, offering such criticisms Memorial Day weekend.
Just moments ago, I received an e-mail from a reader, alerting me to a post highlighting the former president’s follies. But, he wasn’t referencing the comments I made above. This time, Carter was musing about Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb:
I’m not sure that is going to happen, but if it does, what do we do? They are rational people like all of us in this room. Do they want to commit suicide? I would guess not. So what we have to do is talk with them now and say to them we want to be their friends . . .
Um, Jimmy, do you recall what happened in those dark days when you were president and the Iranian mullahs violated international law and took our allowed our diplomats to be taken hostage? Do you want to be friends with those people?
Calling them rational!?!?!? Guessing that they don’t want to commit suicide!?!?!? Have you been paying any attention to Islamofascism over the past quarter-century or so? These are not rational people. They believe in committing suicide to advance their goals. Not just believe in it, practice and promote it — and train for it.
So, the question is, is this an example of Jimmy’s bitterness? Or just his stupidity or his support of anything which opposes the interests of the country he once led?
If stupidity, then we probably can’t offer him his own award. If bitterness, then the question is, should he be awarded an eponymous honor?
Please use the comments section to share your thoughts.
As Jonah Goldberg observed in his book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, we conservatives are often subject to the epithets, “Nazi” or “fascist,” merely for expressing our political point of view. Rarely do the labels even come close to representing our ideology or opinions, indeed are usually at odds with our commitment to freedom and opposition to government programs, serving primarily as a mean for those who so label us to dismiss our ideas.
Well, earlier this week, I read a column by a man who calls himself a conservative, while the ideas he expresses there makes one wonder if Pat Buchanan is, as some have described him, a Nazi sympathizer. Buchanan has long since abandoned the principles which have defined American conservatism (if he ever supported them).
As I’ve noted before, he showed so little regard for the leader of American conservatism, Ronald Reagan, that he chose to speak for far longer than the time allotted him at the 1992 Republican National Convention, bumping the Gipper’s subsequent speech out of prime time.
No one who would show such disrespect for the Gipper should consider himself a conservative. And no paper which seeks to promote serious conservatism would print (or offer pixels to) his columns.
This ex-conservative now claims that President Bush “made a hash of history” when he referenced the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 as an example of the danger of appeasement.
Actually, it’s Buchanan who’s making a hash of history, as he’s pretty much made a hash of every serious idea he’s tried to consider for the past sixteen years or so. He contends that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s September 1938 Munich “deal with Hitler averted a European war — at the expense of the Czech nation.” Well, at least he acknowledges the abandonment of the Czechs.
“German tanks,” Buchanan observes “did not roll into Poland until a year later, Sept. 1, 1939.” And why? Oh, not because they thought the West was weak, having offered up Czechoslovakia to the Nazis, but because Poland “refused to negotiate over Danzig,” then an ethnically German city under Polish sovereignty (but officially a “free city” administered by the League of Nations).
“Hitler,” Buchanan claims, “had not wanted war with Poland.” He did try to negotiate. But, the meanies in the Polish government forced his hand because they were intransigent. The Nazis, you see, just had to invade. They were forced into it because how else could the Nazis include this German-speaking territory in their pan-Germanic Reich?
Does he really believe that Hitler would not have sought to dominate Europe had Poland sat down to negotiate the status of Danzig?
Buchanan takes it as a given the the Nazi idea of uniting all German territories under one regime is a good thing. That he was only driven to evil because the West prevented him from achieving this goal.
