"He's supporting Israel. Israel is our enemy"

Why islamist Egyptians hate Mubarak.

"Why the left hates Sarah Palin"

Until now, I have contended that Sarah Palin would be positively portrayed from coast to coast to coast in the media if she simply became a member of the DNC.

I have learned that I am wrong. Not only is it logically impossible for Palin to belong to the party of the neo-liberals, she would continue to be hated even if she was a Democrat because of who she is.

Via SDA, Evan Sayet offers a very interesting perspective on the reasons behind the left's blind hatred of Sarah Palin. The main thesis:

... what is it about Ms. Palin’s life story that generates this blind loathing?  The answer is that, at every turn, Ms. Palin’s story debunks the myths of victimization and self-centeredness that is at the heart of the modern liberal ideology.

Update 1: I almost forgot. The whole "blood libel" brouhaha. The Jews do not own that term. They have been victims of the promulgation of multiple blood libels, true, but blood libel as a term or concept is not verboten because Jews have been victimized by it. The term blood libel can be reasonably and logically applied whenever a person or a people group are falsely accused of a ritualistic murder of children.

Sarah Palin has been falsely accused of being an accessory to the murder of innocent people in Arizona, one of whom was a precious 9-year-old innocent girl, Christina Green. The only point on which one could therefore possibly dispute Palin's usage of the term blood libel is in regards to ritual. In all other respects, her usage of the term is accurate both historically and by definition.

Update 2: Another insightful view by "recovering liberal" Robin of Berkeley, who adds real life application and experience to the reasons expounded by Sayet. Hat tip again to SDA.

I've always wondered why Barbara was chosen to be tortured, and not a nerdy girl instead.  But after beholding the horrible treatment of Sarah Palin, I finally understand: Barb was a sweet and happy and innocent child.  The leaders of [our summer camp] pack wanted to knock her down from her high horse. [...]

... there's a darker reason for the abject hatred of Palin, and the clues can be found in that Catskill Mountains bunk.  Because evil can manifest when people project their own badness and shame onto another.

People on the left hate Palin for one simple reason: because she is everything they are not.  She is their polar opposite because her life journey has diverged from the prescribed liberal path. 

Update 3: James Taranto, WSJ. Neo-liberal women hate Sarah Palin because

a) she is beautiful,
b) "she has risen above her station" without following the feminist liberal line or attending an Ivy League school or compromising her values, and
c) she does not support abortion.

If only Palin was rank, held an MBA from Harvard, slept with a couple profs or execs to punch through the glass ceiling, forced her unwed daughter to have an abortion and just flushed her defective Trig, they would love her. Which is precisely what Robin of Berkeley is saying.

Dangerous ideas

By now everyone with any exposure to media has heard about the tragic shooting of Arizona's Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

In the ensuing search for answers, left-leaning pundits and politicos have all ten fingers and toes pointed toward the "evil" political right, as they usually do, this time particularly on the Tea Party and the Evil Alaskan, Sarah Palin. Fervent the neo-liberal statists are. Thoughtful and grounded in reality and history they are not.

Here in Canada, Globe and Mail columnists are busy indirectly casting aspersions a spotlight on American conservatism too, blaming Fox News for the state of political discourse in America and lamenting America's "gun problem." Indeed, how fortunate are we Canadians to not have Fox News, which might actually break through the incessant neo-liberal subterfuge filter every now and then and bring some counterpoints to the op-ed-masquerading-as-news "reporting" of the Neil MacDonald types! How blessed we are to be free of the danger of diverse thought and raucous political opinion! And guns?! Thank God for the RCMP, who pull more long guns out of the homes of hunters, sportsmen and farmers each year than they do handguns out of the hands of gangbangers, criminals and organized crime persons. Ah Canada, the great white coddled.

I digress. In the aftermath of this tragedy more than a few are seizing the moment to paint individual liberty and anything close to it as "dangerous." The right to arm oneself, the right to free speech, the corollary of open political discourse, the right to free assembly, and so on. In the wake of the Giffords shooting, inalienable freedoms are today being tagged either directly or indirectly as dangerous.

More dangerous than the bullets fired by mentally unstable men or women, however -- the real danger, if you will -- are the arguments and thoughts of those who would capitalize on tragic events to lay groundwork for the removal of rights and liberties from free men and women.

Enter William Galston at The New Republic, via Frum Forum, making the case for involuntary treatment and commitment of the "mentally disturbed," which early reports indicate accused shooter Jared Loughner certainly is. Galston's motive is security and he argues for these two changes to law.

First, those who acquire credible evidence of an individual’s mental disturbance should be required to report it to both law enforcement authorities and the courts, and the legal jeopardy for failing to do so should be tough enough to ensure compliance. [...]

Second, the law should no longer require, as a condition of involuntary incarceration, that seriously disturbed individuals constitute a danger to themselves or others, let alone a “substantial” or “imminent” danger, as many states do. A delusional loss of contact with reality should be enough to trigger a process that starts with multiple offers of voluntary assistance and ends with involuntary treatment, including commitment if necessary.

Galston's argument is without doubt the most dangerous idea yet to float to the surface in the wake of the Giffords shooting. Readers should note that the proposed amendments have the greatest potential for harm when used in concert: coercion to report mental disturbance + forcible incarceration based on delusion alone.

If this equation does not illustrate the danger of Galston's preferences, here are some explicit reasons why Galston's amendments need to be flushed.

1. Mandatory disclosure overrides patient-doctor confidentiality, which upends privacy law. There is no need to inform the armed branches of the state about the mental state of citizens who pose no imminent threat to themselves or anyone else. The deal on the table is to exchange privacy all the time for the off chance that the state may be able to protect you from a delusional individual at some point in the future. Run away now.
   
   
2. Even if armed with knowledge about who's less than stable mentally, there is no guarantee whatsoever that police are going to be able to stop a mentally disturbed person from committing a crime. We all know that when seconds count the police are only minutes away. So what are police going to do? Monitor mental cases 24/7/365? Put tracking ankle bracelets on them or implant tracking devices under their skin? Or would they simply incarcerate each and every person reported to them via psychologists and psychiatrists? My bet is on the easiest route with potentially lower overall cost and the least risk to officers: confinement. Hence the nefarious power of Gaston's forcible incarceration.
   
   
3. Definitions are powerful. He who gets to decide the scope of the terms decides, by Galston's terms, who gets drugged and committed. So, who defines concepts such as "mental illness" or "delusional" or "credible evidence of mental disturbance?" Richard Dawkins, for example, like all totalitarian dictators of the twentieth century, considers religious belief patently delusional. His New Athiest comrade, Sam Harris, considers religious teaching to children a form of child abuse. Zealots on either side of the political spectrum sometimes seriously consider their opponents to mentally disturbed, delusional, even evil. Totalitarians regard political dissenters to be a threat to the public good. Some neo-liberals consider watching Fox News or believing in Creation to be evidence of being a few fries short of a happy meal. The Trojan horse of Galston's argument is terminology. With very slight tweaks in the scope of the relevant terms there can then be violations of religious and political freedom the ramifications of which Americans have seen only on foreign soil, but which Galston seems to have either forgotten or is willing to risk bringing to America.

So it is that tomorrow, under Galston's law, the very same people pointing fingers and toes at Sarah Palin and conservatives today would have the tools at their disposal to institutionalize those they consider mentally disturbed and make Fox News illegal. I'm sure that sounds fantastic to some but history tells us these sort of ideas are the most dangerous of all, for they lay a foundation that evil men leverage to crush political dissent, religious freedom and general liberty.

I hope and pray the Giffords tragedy will not go down in history as a turning point in the freedoms and rights of Americans. I suspect if you could ask Ms. Giffords today, she'd say much the same.

Update: ElRushbo strikes again. A teaser:

It was interesting on Good Morning America today, and it was interesting what wasn't in the New York Times today that they no doubt heard, that they edited out. [...]

This morning on Good Morning America a portion of an interview Ashleigh Banfield did with Zach Osler, who is a high school friend of the shooter Jared Loughner.  Ashleigh Banfield: "What was his motive in Saturday's attack and what about the speculation that he may have been fueled by partisan politics and rhetoric in the media?"

OSLER: He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn't listen to political radio. He didn't take sides. He wasn't on the left; he wasn't on the right.

RUSH: Doesn't that kind of debunk virtually all speculation that we have heard since 30 minutes after the shooting on Saturday in the media?

Abortion City, NY

The [New York] city health department last month released statistics that showed 41 percent of pregnancies were terminated in 2009.

Lament.

I am a violent parent

... so saith leftist nutbar Liberal Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette. Ezra Levant, ripping her a new one:

Celine Hervieux-Payette has introduced bill S-204 that, if passed into law, would expose parents to assault charges for spanking a child, QMI Agency's Brian Lilley reports.

She would repeal Criminal Code section 43, which protects parents and teachers "using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child," as long as that force is "reasonable under the circumstances." [...]

The Supreme Court of Canada is liberal, especially on social issues. You've got to go to the hard left the anti-parent left, the government-is-your-nanny left to be further left than they are.

Which Hervieux-Payette certainly is.

She's the same senator who wants a law forcing Canadian companies to have 50% of their directors be women.

It's not surprising that someone who thinks the government is a better parent than actual parents are, also thinks the government is better at running businesses than actual businesses are.

So what would Hervieux-Payette's enlightened Canada look like? Her speech promoting her bill is revealing.

Canadian parents who spank, even in accordance with the Supreme Court's rule about gentleness, are "violent," she says.

I have but one statement and one question.

The statement is for Mme. Hervieux-Payette: PISS OFF!

The question is for everyone: When are we going to call on government to allow the election and turfing of Senators?

Recession proof, eh?

Uh oh. Looks like some private sector CEOs are making a lot of money and aren't feeling the pinch of the recession.

It reminds me of another group that is doing very well while the private sector takes a pounding.

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours, a very merry Christmas and sincere hopes for a bright and prosperous 2011.

To center our thoughts this day on Christ, His miraculous advent and glorious plan of salvation, "The Servant King" by Graham Kendrick.

From heaven you came, Helpless Babe,

Entered our world, Your glory veiled;

Not to be served but to serve,

And give Your life that we might live.

This is our God, the Servant King,
He calls us now to follow Him,
To bring our lives as a daily offering
Of worship to the Servant King.

There in the garden of tears,

My heavy load He chose to bear;

His heart with sorrow was torn,

'Yet not My will but Yours,' He said.

Come see His hands and His feet,

The scars that speak of sacrifice;

Hands that flung stars into space

To cruel nails surrendered.

So let us learn how to serve,

And in our lives enthrone Him;

Each other's needs to prefer,

For it is Christ we're serving.

Houston, we have a problem

U.S. Population: 308,745,538. U.S. National Debt: $13,875,380,000,000 and counting.

That's $45,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

And for those that advocate big-freedom limited government, like me, a tax lesson.

... growth tends to be stronger where taxes are lower. Seven of the nine states that do not levy an income tax grew faster than the national average. The other two, South Dakota and New Hampshire, had the fastest growth in their regions, the Midwest and New England.

Update: What happens when a state goes after millionaires? They leave. Oregon should have learned from Maryland. But, hey, since when have politicians let common sense stand in the way of a plan to take more money from people who've earned it?

Crying rape

Rape is not something to spoken of lightly, neither is it a charge to be laid haphazardly. It is one of the most serious of crimes, and our laws reflect this by harshness of penalty.

Yet in recent weeks it seems a few women have decided to try and leverage the gravity of this abhorrent type of abuse either for personal gain or to add weight to their arguments or as an act of revenge, to their eternal shame.

WABC/Channel 7 weather babe Heidi Jones was arrested for perpetrating the ultimate snow job -- falsely claiming to cops that a man had tried to rape her while she was jogging in Central Park...

Khloe Kardashian has come under fire from a number of women's advocates after comparing the TSA's new screening procedures to "rape," during an appearance on "Lopez Tonight."

And, more controversially, the rape charges involving Wikileaks' Julian Assange, which may be proven bona fide but presently appear to be flimsy cases of consent withdrawn ipso facto due to bruised female egos, busted condoms and subsequent refusal to get an HIV test.

Playing fast and loose with the charge of rape denigrates its real victims and exposes a monumental ignorance of its severity and impact. What is more, accusations of false rape affect perceptions of future legitimate claims, much like crying wolf. After all, who could blame the New York police officer for thinking about Heidi Jones the next time a woman presents at the local precinct saying she was raped in Central Park?

"The feminist deception"

Caroline Glick hauls the "feminist" movement on the carpet.^* Do read it all.

Since the height of the feminist movement in the late 1960s, non-leftist women in the West and Israel have been hard-pressed to answer the question of whether or not we are feminists. Non-leftist women are opposed to the oppression of women. Certainly, we are no less opposed to the oppression of women than leftist women are.

But at its most basic level, the feminist label has never been solely or even predominantly about preventing and ending oppression or discrimination of women. It has been about advancing the Left’s social and political agenda against Western societies. It has been about castigating societies where women enjoy legal rights and protections as "structurally" discriminatory against women in order to weaken the legal, moral and social foundations of those societies. That is, rather than being about advancing the cause of women, to a large extent, the feminist movement has used the language of women’s rights to advance a social and political agenda that has nothing to do with women. [...]

The deception at the heart of the feminist movement is nowhere more apparent than in the silence with which self-professed feminists and feminist movements ignore the inhumane treatment of women who live under Islamic law. If feminism weren’t a hollow term, then prominent feminists should be the leaders of the anti-jihad movement.

^* I put feminist in quotes for reasons alluded to by Glick. It seems to me the majority of women agree on a limited set of fundamentals, e.g. women's suffrage, educational and career opportunities, to name a couple. Beyond these there is great diversity of opinion about what is real feminism.

Why am I doing this again?

I contribute to a political blog but a lot of the issues or topics that interest me aren't completely political in nature. I'm finding I still want to post from time to time about general goings-on in the world and elicit feedback from people who have an opinion they wish to share on such matters. Even if people don't want to comment, it's a means for me to say something when I get all torqued up.

There was a time when I blogged to gain a wider audience, but I found it took a lot of time and energy, the former which I have in limited supply. With this in mind, I can make no promise about post frequency or regularity. This blog is simply to get topics out there as they torque me up, and I really could care less if I have a following as such.

That said, I hope you enjoy some of the topics, subscribe to the RSS feed, and pop back every now and then when you are all torqued up.