GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Barcelona car attacks

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As you know, terrorists killed at least 14 people in Barcelona on Thursday with cars, and injured at least 100 more in multiple attacks.

A group called “Islamic State” claimed responsibility, making them explicitly political and Islamic attacks.

By any objective measure, this is a much worse tragedy and problem than what happened in Charlottesville last weekend, although our thoughts and prayers are with all victims of both.

The LA Times article above phrases it oddly. LAT’s title says the attack is “blamed on ‘jihadi terrorism'”. The internal scare-quotes are theirs. The body says:

Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Barcelona was the victim of “jihadi terrorism”…

In other words, LA Times won’t call it jihadi terrorism; it will only report neutrally the fact that, oddly, for some strange reason that one might not be able to fathom, others choose to leap to that conclusion.

This fits in with the [Left] Media Complex Playbook that V mentioned a couple days ago.

  • If the car is driven by a mentally-ill white supremacist and kills 1 person, it’s proof that Republicans are Nazis, America is in the grip of an epidemic of racism, Trump is the KKKing of racists, and lefties are correct to physically bash their opponents.
  • But if the cars (multiple) are driven by consciously-religious Muslims and kill 14 people, it’s not proof of anything except that Muslims are victims of hate crimes by Republicans – and lefties are correct to physically bash their opponents.

If UK/Europe are doomed, this is why

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Cross The Line in the UK is a Twitter ad campaign to help people “spot the signs of right wing extremism”. Signs such as being young, doing political actions, and going to the gym:

Here’s the thing: Young, politically-involved gym-goers may vote for Brexit (gasp!), but they commit no terrorist attacks, in the UK or elsewhere. Unless they’re Muslim. If they’re Muslim, they do it all the time, killing and maiming people.

Does the UK have ad campaigns to help people spot the signs of Islamic extremism?

Real threats to journalists’ safety

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#RetardedCNN thought they had scored bigly, because they tracked down a nobody who launched a silly Internet meme – a funny gif of Trump beating down CNN’s company logo. And because they were able to terrorize the nobody into begging CNN’s forgiveness.

Hey CNN, how about getting back to real life? Try this one on:

On the fifth anniversary of [a controversy], I appeared on stage with five other people. Of those five… [and for having spoken about the controversy,] one was shot at point-blank range. The other had his event shot-up and two people were killed. Another was forced out of public life entirely. And the fourth had her family’s restaurant fire-bombed. Those are real threats against media figures that go on… right now.

Can you guess

  1. The specific controversy?
  2. The larger theme – who did it? Who does those kinds of attack on public media figures, in real life?

The first answer might not be obvious, but the second should be super obvious. Hint: It wasn’t Trump supporters, or conservatives of any stripe. [Read more…]

The Face(book) of Evil

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The Right-o-sphere is rife with personal stories of Facebook, Google/Youtube and Twitter either de-monetizing, restricting, throttling, censoring or banning conservative and libertarian voices.

Facebook seems happy to do it – while allowing Islamists the run of the place, to the point where PM Theresa May called for Internet censorship after the recent Islamist mass murders in Manchester.

Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg said:

[Terrorist attacks are] carried out with a goal to spread fear and distrust, and turn members of a community against each other. I believe the only sustainable way to fight back against those who seek to divide us is to create a world where understanding and empathy can spread faster than hate, and where every single person in every country feels connected and cared for and loved. That’s the world we can and must build together.

This is so misguided that, coming from a nominally-intelligent man, one must almost wonder if some evil force possesses him? Because it happens to be what the wolf would say to the hounds if it could; or what Satan might say when cornered.

Newsflash, Mr. Zuckerberg: terrorist attacks are carried out with a goal of killing infidels and establishing the supremacy of Islam. Period. You have to admit a problem’s true nature, before you can solve it.

I don’t want to “fight back against those who seek to divide us.” Because that makes zero sense. Anyone who ever does anything good or new, or who takes a stand (be it true or false) on anything, “seeks to divide us.” It happens. It makes much more sense to fight back against those who seek to subjugate and/or kill us.

The terrorist losers use your own platform, Mr. Zuckerberg, and it’s not clear if you make much effort to stop them. Much less, an effort greater than what you put into stopping U.S. conservatives, or other critics of Hillary or the Big Government that you love so much.

Recently, a Pakistani man was sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy – on his Facebook page. Facebook claims innocence; “we do not provide any government with direct access to people’s data. We will continue to protect our community from unnecessary or overreaching government intervention.”

But I don’t know if I can believe that. Because:

Is Facebook an accessory to Pakistan’s judicial murder of Taimoor Raza? We need to know. I couldn’t find any recent statement about it.

And of course, that Facebook would ever give a hoot about anti-Jewish or anti-Christian blasphemy is unimaginable. (As it should be; the point here is Facebook’s extreme double standard.)

Right now it appears that Facebook puts WAY more into stopping conservatives and libertarians – people who stand for life and liberty – than it puts into stopping various kinds of Islamic murderer. That’s evil.

Hat tip Steven Crowder. By the way, his Painting Muhammad video is must-see.

Anything to avoid saying ‘Muslim’

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The first step to solving a problem for real, is: Naming it honestly.

As Mark Steyn points out (hat tip V), our leftie-globalist-academic Superiors want us to believe that “sowing division” is what’s wrong with the endless stream of mass murders by Muslim terrorists. Because the desirable opposite is “unity”, led by those same Superiors.

Thus, they subtly equate their critics with Muslim terrorists. If, say, you’re a free-market populist who rejects the elite consensus, you’re as bad as a Muslim mass murderer. Because you’re also “sowing division”.

It’s similar to how the Left represents “hate speech” (i.e., criticism or rejection of the Left) as a form of violence, unprotected by the First Amendment. Under such insane terms, the Left is allowed to attack you with physical violence because they are only protecting themselves from the “violence” that you were about to think, or say.

Re: the London attacks, British media says they were done by “men of Mediterranean coloring”. It has a courtroom precision to it, which is nice, but also don’t say Muslim.

London’s Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, did at least call them “cowardly terrorists”. And Prime Minister Theresa May slammed the “evil ideology of Islamist extremism” – but then went back to calling for “unity”, plus Internet censorship. As opposed to, say, deporting the UK’s known Muslim radicals and improved vetting of Muslim immigrants, or better enforcement of the UK’s existing laws against inciting violence.

It’s beyond question that the murderers were doing it for Allah. One can only hope that the good people of the UK will wake up.

Paris Agreement Sucked – No One Should Want It

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Yesterday I wrote a lot of text on this. Thanks to all commenters who made helpful additions.

Today I want to give the short version. With short sentences. For lefties.

  • The Paris Agreement did not control CO2. It let China, India and Russia do what they wanted. Oooh, Russia! Bad!!!!1!! Right?
  • The Paris Agreement did not control CO2. Even the UN scienticians agreed that it made almost no difference to their Global Warming projected temperatures.
  • The Paris Agreement was a krazy-bad deal. It made the U.S. almost the only leading country that has to wreck its workers’ lives and futures.
  • The Paris Agreement was a krazy-bad deal. It made the U.S. almost the only leading country that has to give away many tens of billions of dollars annually, to pay Third World kleptocrats to hold back their countries.

Hey lefties: If you didn’t know these things, I’m sorry you’re so gullible.

I bet you’re gullible enough to think CNN or WaPo “fact checkers” are real, and not just fellow lefties trying to keep you on the plantation.

And, one more time: If Paris “imposes nothing on us” or is non-binding – then why should withdrawing from it be a crisis?

Think. If it’s true that any party can blow it off (note IF) – then it’s worthless, in yet another way.

Leftists: Still running amok

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They’re still claiming that any opposition to leftism could only be motivated by racism. Here, Rep. Steve Israel (D) says it back-hand style:

Candy: Do you think your Republican colleagues are racist?

Israel: Not all of them, no. Of course not. But to a significant extent, the Republican base does have elements that are animated by racism.

They’re still demanding that their failures be subsidized and bailed out. Here, a “green” solar company sues the government for only having dished it $250 million of taxpayer money, instead of millions more.

They’re still using highly questionable statistics to demagogue the issue of equal pay for men and women.

They’re still fighting their ‘war’ on Fox News, and failing – sometimes with hilarious results. The video shows Greta van Susteren cornering an aggressive Democrat into admitting that he lied about his resume.

They’re still racially divisive with amazing double standards. Here, a Democrat belittles her African-American GOP colleague for being only “half” black. Which, remember, happens to be what President Obama is.

They still have amazing double standards on the issues of Islam, free speech and women’s rights. Last week, leftists hit a triple (the wrong positions on all three) when Brandeis snubbed Ayaan Hirsi Ali after considering her for an honorary degree.

They’re still screeching “McCarthyism!” to deflect attention from their misconduct, as Rep. Elijah Cummings (D) did last week, when questions arose over his own staff’s collusion with the dangerously out-of-control IRS.

UPDATE: At least there’s hope for Wisconsin:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has had a good run lately. He signed a major tax relief package into law, his controversial budget reforms have put the state back in the black…A new poll from Wisconsin Public Radio suggests that voters are appreciative of the governor’s accomplishments. Walker leads Democrat Mary Burke by 16 points in the survey (56/40), with Walker’s approval rating soaring to just shy of 60 percent — an all-time high in the series. (President Obama’s job approval is underwater at 48/50 in the poll). Walker’s lead is fueled by a 19-point advantage among independents…

Harassment, censorship and disease

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Some quick links.

Thanks to reader Peter H, for about half the items!

Lefties: No moral self-confidence – and fearfully proud of it

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I had a lunch discussion recently with two former co-workers. Both of these men are engineers in their 30s who are fairly hard-working, competent and successful, pulling six-figure salaries. In the free and dynamic America of yore, these men would be proud of where their choices in life had taken them. But this is 2014, they are white, and they are MSDNC-watching left-liberals in a “Blue” area.

“Mark” started saying how lucky he feels to be an engineer because the work is physically so much easier and safer than being a field worker or factory hand, and pays more. I agreed, while reminding Mark that the work is mentally exhausting, something much-demanded by society (the market), and something most people wouldn’t even attempt. In other words, reminding Mark that he deserves his salary.

As if to answer me, “Ross” instantly went into a description of himself as “born into privilege”, saying how he had never really chosen anything in his life, but his course has always been determined by the social forces pushing him along and granting him privilege. This was strange, because I know for a fact that Ross works hard, which is a choice right there. So I reminded him of the constant stream of choices that he faces – be it as simple as “go back to work after this lunch, or not?” – and how those choices affect his results, like having a salary or not.

I won’t bore you with too many details. The conversation continued as a debate of Free Will implying self-responsibility and pro-liberty politics, vs. Social Determinism implying “you didn’t build that” and re-distributive, left-wing politics. We didn’t get into politics much; it lurked in the background.

But I want to tell you about the discussion’s ending. Here’s the short version: I was nice enough, yet Ross and Mark were red-faced with anger and embarrassment – because they didn’t “win”. I punctured their bubble.

At first, Ross could not process my point that all people have choices, by which they determine their own success. Asking near-childlike questions, he had me explain the concept over and over. “What if a person is born in poverty?” I’d explain how poverty is indeed a circumstance shaping the person’s life; but they still choose their *response* to it. Poverty may limit a person’s range of choices, but even poor people still face a stream of choices, that only ends when a person dies.

If a poor person joins a gang or develops a drug habit – and sticks with it, in adult life – that’s a series of choices they made. Likewise if, for better success, they work hard to get a G.E.D. and become a shift manager at the local McDonald’s, it is a series of choices they made. Likewise, my life-long self-education has been a choice. Thus I explained.

As Ross caught on, he correctly saw the implication that the McDonald’s shift manager would *deserve* her success being greater than the gang member’s or drug addict’s – just as he, Mark and I each deserve our success. And Ross didn’t like that idea. Smiling his best “Jane, you ignorant slut” type of patronizing smile, he suggested that I was out to rationalize backward, unjust notions.

With a smile right back, I pointed out that nobody was rationalizing anything; my success having come from my hard work and personal choices was not a rationalization, but a fact; and a fact that his determinist philosophy badly needed to deal with. That was the exact moment when Ross turned beet-red.

His words turned sarcastic (suggesting anger), while his voice turned quavery (suggesting anxiety). I could see that Mark, now silent, was also getting red – with a deer-in-the-headlights look of uncertainty around his eyes.

Mind you, nobody raised voices in this discussion; nobody called names or made the least of personal attacks. All I did was display my moral confidence, my certain knowledge that I had earned my success – and imply that Mark and Ross should also be morally self-confident, as they had earned theirs.

My doing that alone, nothing more, made these two men visibly feel both uncertain and violated. The interaction ended there, as we’d run out of time. I think it says a lot about left-liberals.

Lefties live in a world where lack of moral self-confidence is a required personality trait. Humility is not required; leftists usually proclaim their beliefs with arrogant certainty. But among those beliefs is a dogma to the effect that no one, including the leftie, *deserves* to have any confidence or any certainty, since no one is ever better than the worst “poor” criminal out there. Any educated, enlightened person must genuflect and display his official, dogmatic lack of confidence that he could ever be right about anything. THEN he can go on to make arrogant proclamations (provided they are left-wing).

If someone shows a different way of being – if someone thinks differently from the leftie, and has moral confidence in doing so – showing, for example, confidence that her success is deserved – many a leftie will find that person threatening. Tactic A is to smile and patronize the person as benighted; perhaps tactic B would be ridicule. If neither works – if the tables are turned, if the left-liberal’s worldview is punctured or exposed as the hollow thing it is – then the average leftie will go into fear and anger.

Sad!

What ARE the aims of Obama’s foreign policy?

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Victor Davis Hanson published a memorable piece in the National Review last week entitled “America as Pill Bug.”  The pill bug or the roly-poly bug is one that turns itself into a ball when it feels threatened.  Hanson writes:

That roly-poly bug can serve as a fair symbol of present-day U.S. foreign policy, especially in our understandable weariness over Iraq, Afghanistan, and the scandals that are overwhelming the Obama administration.

On August 4, U.S. embassies across the Middle East simply closed on the basis of intelligence reports of planned al-Qaeda violence. The shutdown of 21 diplomatic facilities was the most extensive in recent American history.

Yet we still have over a month to go before the twelfth anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001, an iconic date for radical Islamists.

Such preemptive measures are no doubt sober and judicious. Yet if we shut down our entire public profile in the Middle East on the threat of terrorism, what will we do when more anti-American violence arises? Should we close more embassies for more days, or return home altogether?

Hanson makes an excellent point about the way the Obama administration’s closure of embassies is likely to be viewed in the Arab world and around the globe.  Although, as Jeff pointed out in a post last week, the administration may have ulterior motives–by trying to create a distraction–by closing the embassies in this manner, the reality is that the interpretation of the administration’s actions by our international foes is likely to proceed in a manner similar to that Hanson envisions in his article.

Hanson looks at the example of Libya and Syria to illustrate that the administration’s “lead from behind” strategy is not working, and that it appears to be counterproductive:

Instead, the terrorists are getting their second wind, as they interpret our loud magnanimity as weakness — or, more likely, simple confusion. They increasingly do not seem to fear U.S. retaliation for any planned assaults. Instead, al-Qaeda franchises expect Americans to adopt their new pill-bug mode of curling up until danger passes.

Our enemies have grounds for such cockiness. President Obama promised swift punishment for those who attacked U.S. installations in Benghazi and killed four Americans. So far the killers roam free. Rumors abound that they have been seen publicly in Libya.

Instead of blaming radical Islamist killers for that attack, the Obama reelection campaign team fobbed the assault off as the reaction to a supposedly right-wing, Islamophobic videomaker. That yarn was untrue and was greeted as politically correct appeasement in the Middle East.

All these Libyan developments took place against a backdrop of “lead from behind.” Was it wise for American officials to brag that the world’s largest military had taken a subordinate role in removing Moammar Qaddafi — in a military operation contingent on approval from the United Nations and the Arab League but not the U.S. Congress?

No one knows what to do about the mess in Syria. But when you do not know what to do, it is imprudent to periodically lay down “red lines.” Yet the administration has done just that to the Bashar al-Assad regime over the last two years.

Hanson sees the Obama administration’s foreign policy as a disastrous replay of the Carter doctrine, once again illustrating Glenn Reynolds’ frequent observation that a replay of Jimmy Carter is simply the “best-case scenario” for Obama.

While I believe Hanson is right in his characterization of the big picture and the likely consequences of Obama foreign policy, I’d differ from him in seeing Obama as being as feckless and weak as Carter.  I’d maintain that Carter’s foreign policy was guided by a number of naive precepts about the nature of the world.  At least during the years of his presidency, I’d contend that Carter “meant well” in the way the phrase is commonly used to describe a hopelessly incompetent bumbler who seems incapable of recognizing his own shortcomings.  Likewise, early in the Obama administration, Tammy Bruce started referring to Obama as Urkel, the nerdy, awkward, inept kid from the TV show “Family Matters” who had an uncanny ability to mess up almost everything he touched.  That certainly is one narrative for what Obama is doing in the world of foreign policy, but I’m not sure it is the right one.

As I contemplate Obama foreign policy, though, particularly in the Middle East, I find myself thinking more and more that although incompetence might be the simplest explanation, it might not be the best or the right one.  I see no good intentions in the administration’s domestic policy, so why should its foreign policy be exempt from charges that it is motivated more by malevolence to the United States and its role in history than by a supposed set of “liberal” ideals?

This is an administration that seems bent on alienating all of our historical allies as quickly as possible, while taking it easy on our geopolitical foes.  Obama seems to want our allies to view us as unreliable and untrustworthy while making sure our enemies view us as weak, indecisive, and either unable or unwilling to use force to protect our interests or to enforce our stated policy goals.  If there is a better explanation of the administration’s ultimate foreign policy goals, I’d sure like to know what it might be.